what moves the sun and other stars
by black-ostias
Summary: AU in which mob and reigen have been best friends since childhood. in the future they'll have to juggle a consultation office, a murderous esper organization, 13-year-old ritsu, and the chaotic terrain of what they're willing to do for each other. right now they must survive middle school, alien conspiracy theorists, puberty, and the eldritch horror inside mob that wants friends.
1. prologue

**1999**

Exactly 51 days after Mob's 14th birthday, Ritsu is born.

Mob and his father sit outside the hospital room, hallway turned sickly-green by the old fluorescent bulbs. They have an unspoken agreement not to speak to each other for now. A passersby's glance would make obvious that they're anxious to see the baby, but in truth their anxiety is about something else.

"The whole room shook when you came!" His mother had recalled as Mob pressed his ear to her belly one night. "Let's hope it won't happen this time, or not too badly at least." Her tone was lighthearted, but Mob knew it was forced. He sits, and waits for objects to float, lights to flicker, people to gasp and yell in confusion.

There is a baby's wail, and the lights do not flicker. Things stay where they are. After a few long moments, Mob's father laughs with relief and claps him on the back.

They're escorted inside. Mob's mother is fast asleep. On her breast, a red lump with impossibly thick hair and loud, loud lungs is being tended to. Their father takes the baby's tiny hand, and motions for Mob to take the other.

 _i will protect you from everything_ , he vows, holding that hand delicate as eggshells, priceless as diamonds. In front of them, the nurse yelps as the scissors he was supposed to cut the umbilical cord with twist and tangle like vines.

Afterwards, they find Reigen and his mother waiting for them in the lobby. His sneakers screech as he runs to Mob and practically tackles him, babbling, "How's little brother? I can't wait to meet him! Oi, is he like you?"

Mob grins a shy sliver of a grin, his eyes lit up. "No," he says, "but he's perfect."

Over their heads, Mob can hear his father drop coins into the vending machine for snacks and tell Reigen's mother, "I'm glad Shigeo has your son."

"As am I," she laughs. "They're strange, wonderful boys. I'm sure they'll do strange, wonderful things together."

Reigen pulls on Mob's bangs, perhaps displeased that Mob's attention was diverted from him even for a few seconds. He's still grinning, though, gleeful and eager and talking about how he'd always wanted a little brother. Mob idly imagines Reigen dressed as a ninja, sneaking into their home to steal Ritsu away for himself.

"Don't forget about me, your lonely only-child friend," Reigen laments, placing a dramatic hand over his heart. Mob answers without needing to think about it: "Of course not, Arataka-kun."

Reigen lights up, bright as a city all alone in the middle of a desert, bright as the whole day, and Mob knows he could never forget this.

 **2012**

Mob texts Ritsu to have a good day at school, and enters the Spirits and Aliens Consultation Office. He sees Tome hunched over her desk, engrossed in Candy Crush Saga, something she's been doing a lot recently. He yanks her phone out of her hand with a flick of his wrist, and smirks when she springs up like a jack-in-the-box as the phone swims on the ceiling.

" _Mob-kun you little shit_ I thought it was a demon! Or an alien abduction!"

"Stay on your toes, Tome-chan," he chuckles, floating the phone gently back to her. "Aliens might really try to abduct your phone this time, and then what would we do?"

Tome grumbles and smooths down her pencil skirt, but a smile tugs at her mouth anyway. "Smartass. Reigen's in the massage room," she says, though Mob didn't ask.

"We're not supposed to call it the 'massage room,' just the exorcism room," he answers, walking towards it anyway as he straightens his tie.

"Sure, like I can call myself the Alien Whisperer or that dork can call himself the century's Greatest Psychic."

Mob lets her rant. He pushes the door open to see Reigen organizing incense sticks. The little windows have been opened to let the old air out, and the morning sun hugs and blurs Reigen's edges into an aura of his own. Even in his full suit, he always manages to look disheveled, the same way he did in their uniform when they were children. He looks up at the sound of Mob's shuffling, and grins. Mob's heart flutters pathetically like a caged bird.

"Hey, Mob. Ready to get some exorcisms going?"

"Always, Arataka-kun." Mob stretches out and the windows flutter shut, the lamp in the corner switches on. The anthuriums that were slumping in their pots stand at attention, their petals growing just a bit wider. As he does this, he realizes Reigen is staring. Mob wonders consciously if his staticked floating hair looks different, or his tie isn't done right. Reigen is staring but Mob doesn't think anything of it because that's been happening since they were fifteen. It never means anything when he looks at Mob like that.

Reigen coughs and waves a hand in front of his nose, probably because of the still-stuffy room. "You made the flowers grow again," he chides. "Can't you ever throw that energy my way, even once?"

Mob grins. "I'm only four centimeters taller than you, Arataka-kun."

"Yeah, but I'm the one seven months older," Reigen huffs, storming past him into the office space. "I should at least look it."

"You're being transparently insecure again, Reigen," Tome cackles over the sounds of the tinny candy explosions from her phone. An expression crosses over Reigen's face that would have looked impossibly cartoonish on anyone else, and they begin bickering. Mob tunes them out and sits at his desk. In the company emails, a woman named Hanako has asked for their help to dispatch a headbutting evil spirit. He can hear Reigen threatening to tear down Tome's alien poster and replace it with another copy of his, and he smiles to himself, types a reply to their new client. It's just another perfect day.


	2. mitosis

mitosis (n.): the process of growth or cell division in biology.

Reigen Arataka meets Kageyama Shigeo when they are six years old.

The building for the first and second grades sprawls out under a canopy of leaves green as exotic birds, sunlight winking through. This does not atone for the fact that Arataka's first day at school is not going well. His mother had insisted on meeting the teacher. It's not that he's ashamed of her, but the stares of these other kids and their parents make him want to blend into the animal mural on the wall behind him. His mother chats up the teacher as though nothing's out of place with her all-too-American face, her stilted Japanese. She tries to hug him goodbye afterwards, saying "I love you, Taka!" but he hangs his head low and hurries into the classroom. He sinks into one of the wooden yellow chairs at the very end of the tables, panda backpack leaning on his shins. Everyone glances at him and the light brown hair he's inherited. _one of these things is not like the other,_ he sing-songs in his head, morose, as class begins.

And then their teacher tries to lift the sizeable workbooks to distribute to everyone when they suddenly float off her desk and into the air, clouds of paper and ink and shiny wrapped covers.

Arataka's eyes go wide, while the teacher shrieks and the class cries in confusion, knocking over chairs and yelling "Ghost, ghost!" Arataka braces against a wall, wracking his brains to remember his grandparents' teachings about ghosts and spirits and demons, but then he sees him. A pale little kid, thick bangs taking up half his face, arm outstretched and hand moving in time to the way the books thud onto the tables. He's…glowing, is the only word for it, soft hypothermia-blue glow of something slow but dangerous. His hair moves as though underwater, as though a breeze is carding its fingers through the black tufts.

"Hey, he's the one doing it!" Another boy finally catches on, and everyone gasps and murmurs and stares. The boy falters from the attention, but keeps going, even setting the upset chairs back up. He lowers his arm and his hair flops down to sprawl on his head, the glow dissipates. The entire ordeal lasts five seconds, but what has just occurred seems like it defies the very order of time.

"Y-You…" Their teacher finds her breath again. "What's your name?"

The boy looks around as if he hasn't realized the question was directed at him. When it clicks, he does a little bow. "Kageyama Shigeo, ma'am," he answers dutifully. He's soft-spoken and gentle and utterly unremarkable. Arataka has to tear his eyes away from him like a band-aid.

"Kageyama," the teacher repeats, still dazed, but shakes herself. "Kageyama, did you do this? _How_ did you do this?"

"Sometimes my dad needs my help lifting things that are too heavy for him. You needed help too, ma'am," the boy explains. His eyes are serene but confused, as though he cannot fathom floating powers being an unusual occurrence. "Unless you're like my mom, who doesn't want me helping, not that way."

The whole class is calmer but still bug-eyed, save for a pretty girl glancing between the strange boy and the ceiling, mouth upturned at the memory of books suspended on invisible strings. Arataka wants to smile in wonder too, now that the freaked-out shine has been rubbed from the situation. The teacher clears her throat and straightens from the blackboard she had glued herself to in shock. "Right. Don't do that again. Everyone, let's sit and introduce ourselves one by one."

Arataka sits as each of the other kids chatter on, pondering what he's just witnessed. When the Kageyama boy gets up to talk again, someone wisecracks, "We already heard your name, not that we care."

"He can just be 'Mob,' that solves our problems," another interjects. The class bubbles with little laughs, save for Arataka, torn between being relieved that he is not the most unusual kid in class, and disappointed that the one who actually _is_ interesting can't hold people's attention for more than a minute. He tries to remember what big word his father would use for this situation. Paradox, perhaps, or irony.

What Arataka understands is this: he won't be underestimating Kageyama Shigeo, even if he's called Mob.

* * *

The Reigen family dog hadn't come into their life so much as wandered in, marked it as her territory, and promptly stayed there as though she always belonged. Arataka's dad believed she must have been a stray's offspring, two months old to young Arataka's two years. The toddler had taken one look at her roaming their little backyard and cried until his parents agreed to keep her. His mother always jokingly marks that incident as the beginning of his silvertongue persuasiveness.

The pup is named Mikadzuki, for the moon's shape that night when the Reigens adopted her, shortened to Mika over time. Arataka enjoys stroking her short white hair, kissing her perked triangle ears, rolling around with her on the living room floor, and loving her.

One slow Saturday afternoon she goes missing.

Arataka's father nails back the loose board in the backyard fence that's the culprit for her escape and drives out to find her. His mother is on the phone calling the neighbors, but they're not moving _fast_ enough. What if she's gone long enough that she decides she doesn't want to be his best friend anymore, what if there's a nicer little boy whose parents don't fight and yell, and who gives better treats. He won't let that happen, he can't. Arataka laces on his shoes, grabs Mika's leash from behind the front door, and stomps out to find her, ignoring his mother's yelled protests in English.

He can't stop crying. Fat ugly tears are escaping him and blurring his vision, but he keeps howling Mika's name. Some adults are alarmed at the sight of a sandy-haired six year old causing such a ruckus and try to stop him. He's about to twist away from one's firm hands when he sees it.

At first he thinks, _that's a very solid balloon_ , but then the balloon starts barking with ecstatic black lips and wagging its tail and that's—!

Mika floats down and begins bounding full speed ahead at him on the sidewalk, and he meets her halfway. He's crying from joy now as he crouches to hug her squirming body. Mika licks his tears and snot until her tongue almost enters his mouth. He hiccups, stuck between a giggle and a sob. "Gross, Mika!" He clips on her leash and wipes his face on his forearm. To his surprise, the strange boy from his class is standing some ways in front of him, awkwardly drinking in the intimate moment as he holds hands with someone who's probably his mother. Arataka remembers how Mika had been floating the same way the books did, and puts two and two together.

"Hello," he offers, wishing he sounds less waterlogged. "Thank you very much for returning Mika." He stands and gives a belated little bow.

The woman laughs, kind eyes twinkling in a browned face. "You're very much welcome. Shigeo found her trying to cross the street alone. He lifted her with his—" she hesitates, "—his gifts, and we found your address on her collar, two blocks away from us. Take better care of her, young man!"

"His name is Reigen Arataka," Shigeo adds quietly, looking up at his mother, then Arataka. His eyes are like the old well behind Arataka's grandparents' house in the countryside. Similar, not quite because of their dark color, but the deep stillness, reflecting light only from far away. "She's a nice dog."

"Ah, Shige, he's in your class? I'm so glad you got to help him!" Shigeo's mother is beaming and ruffling his hair. Shigeo nods, his microscopic smile widening a little more when he looks at Mika. Arataka hesitates for a bit, and then decides to be polite: "You can come visit her, if you want. Just tell me at school." As if to affirm this, Mika's tail wags harder in its non-stop blur.

Shigeo gasps, grinning. "Really? Thank you—Reigen-kun!" He sounds more animated now than in all the months Arataka has known him combined.

His mother laughs, adding, "How delightful, thank you. Oh, it's getting late and I still need to make dinner. Come on, Shige, say goodbye to your friend." After a few moments of embarrassed squirming, Shigeo quickly waves his arm.

"See you, Kageyama-kun," Arataka says, and Shigeo's mother is pacified, herding her son back down the sidewalk from whence they came.

Arataka wonders if Shigeo's ever interacted with somebody outside of school, much less made friends. From how enthusiastic his mother was about this encounter, he probably hardly even talks to anyone.

Mika snuffles and nudges his hand with a wet black nose, eager to get home. He smiles. Perhaps becoming friends with someone with handy dog-rescuing powers won't be so bad.

Everyone thinks Arataka is smart. He's eloquent, talking circles around his teachers in recitation until they think he's given the right answer. His acquaintances laugh at his jokes, he's easygoing, he's good to be around. But Arataka is not smart at books, or knowledge; he's smart at people. And he's smart at people because he watches them.

Arataka learned to read when he was three years old, kind of by accident, because his father liked to pin his court cases on the walls of his study until nearly every inch was paper and pen. He'd mumble words like "libel," "obstruction of justice," "multiple homicide and felonies, goddamnit." Arataka stayed on the carpet at the foot of his father's armchair, skipping fingers over the words, sometimes climbing up onto a stool to see the ones higher up, all while his father read his work out loud. At some point, though, the gibberish symbols crystallized into names, the sounds attaching to the characters. Crawling on the back of his dad's favorite chair, patting him on the head, pulling his ears, and his father held up a just-bought .45 for Arataka to see, and he pointed over his dad's shoulder at the shiny words, reading certainly, "Chairman a'da Board." And his father looked back in surprise, Arataka perched behind him, blinking back and thinking maybe he'd did something wrong, and then his father broke a grin and reached up to pull his son down into his lap, laughing and ruffling his hair and saying, "Would you look at that, so smart, just like your old man."

Arataka doesn't watch Shigeo, precisely, because that's creepy to do. He just becomes more aware, especially on the playground. Shigeo strikes up awkward, adorable conversations with pretty, kind Tsubomi, eagerly trying to impress her, levitating erasers and frogs, even twisting spoons and bars of solid metal in defiance of the laws of physics. It's intriguing…but only for so long.

"I'm getting bored of that," she sighs one recess period, and Shigeo visibly deflates. Some of the girls wave Tsubomi over. "Mob-kun, let's join them and play superhero instead!"

Shigeo stutters, "Um, that's okay, you go, Tsubomi-chan." Tsubomi shrugs and runs to her friends in a blur of soft pink. Shigeo plods over to the swings and sits on one, scuffing his shoes on the ground. He hasn't realized that Arataka is sitting under the tree right next to the swings, the alligator skin bark scraping his back.

Arataka clears his throat and lowers his coloring book. "Hey, Mob-kun."

The other boy whips his head up in surprise, and manages a polite, tensed-mouth smile. "Hello, Reigen-kun."

"Wow, you're really starting to answer to Mob."

"I guess so," Shigeo says, morose. "Everyone calls me that. Even you did, just now. I guess I shouldn't mind."

"Ah." Arataka thinks for a bit, then stands with a deathly serious look on his face. This boy had saved his dog; it was only right to make him feel better. "Own the name, Shigeo. No shame in being called Mob. Use it yourself so it can't hurt you. Besides, Dad and I watched an American film called 'The Godfather' and you know what their Yakuza gang is called there? Mob! Be a gangster too." He's just rambling, trying to sound important, but then he hears a sound.

Shigeo is giggling.

It only lasts a few seconds, like a little bell struck by errant wind, but for someone so stoic to finally open up, it makes Arataka feel happy, accomplished, _useful_. "Is that a yes, then, Mob?" he asks, a fierce grin on his face.

"Yes, Reigen-kun!"

Arataka pauses and thinks, wondering if he might be crossing a line at this one. "You know, you don't have to try so hard to impress Takane-chan."

Shigeo blushes hard enough that it reaches the tips of his ears, his grip on the metal chains of the swings tightening. "T-Tsubomi—I mean, Takane-chan?"

"Yeah, I mean, your powers are cool but there are lots of other interesting things about lots of other kids. You just kept showing her esper stuff to talk to her instead of… talking to her." Shigeo wilts again, and Arataka laughs, and gently nudges him. "But it's okay, she's nice."

Shigeo nods. "Thank you. Um…" His face scrunches up. "What's an esper?"

Arataka has to hold his coloring book over his heart in shock. "Wait, you don't even _know_ that's what you are?"

"No?" Shigeo squeaks. "Is that bad?"

Well, this simply mustn't do. Arataka scratches his head in thought. "Hmm, well, sometimes my grandma tells me stories about them. Espers, or psychics, can be really strong and cool and fight bad spirits."

"Oh." Shigeo looks down at his hands, as though imagining them crushing evil. "I don't know anyone who's like me. I can lift stuff. I don't know about strong and cool and spirits."

Arataka comes right up to Shigeo and swings an arm around his shoulders. "You saved Mika, you're cool to me. Which reminds me, you never came to my house to play with her, so you're going with me later. Okay?"

Mob perks up again, eyes shining brighter than torches. "Okay, Reigen-kun!"

Arataka has many acquaintances, but this is the first time he can safely say that he's made an actual friend.

* * *

They grow up together, and they grow up well.

They grow up with temporary tattoo stickers on their foreheads and gummy worms hanging out of their mouths. They do crazy stuff on jungle gyms and see every part of their hometown whistling past on their bikes. Living room floors and the front lawn, the park, the mall, the sidewalk. They're spies and they're baseball players and they're rock stars. They're jumping on the bed and wadding balled-up homework at each other, Mika barking at them and trying to snap up the errant papers.

They team up for relay racing and other sports on PE days, though they almost never win competitions. Arataka knows Mob still does his best to impress Tsubomi, and acts as a buffer, a wingman. They play in the sandboxes with her, Tsubomi smiling when Mob levitates buckets and trowels for them.

Their families get along, they have barbecues all throughout the summer, and go to Disneyland together, and go on trips to the countryside. Mob's mother teaches Arataka's mother better pronunciation, while their dads bond over cars and boxing.

Sometimes Arataka storms into the Kageyama residence with an overnight bag, face sticky with salt tears. Mob and his parents will say nothing but lay out another futon for him, Mob drifting his flashlight along his walls in the perfect dark, creating shapes and silent tales until Arataka is ready to talk or until he falls asleep.

Sometimes Mob knocks on the Reigens' door, eyes glassy with emotion, his hair floating and small objects in his proximity lifting slightly. Arataka will take his hand and lead him to the red pup tent permanently set up in their backyard, under the rope-swing tree, where they can spend the night in matching sleeping bags, side by side. Mika curls up at their feet and whines until they pet her a bit, and then she can slumber deeply too.

Mika loves Mob, and when they were younger Arataka got irrationally jealous and possessive of that, but now he just cackles and takes stolen pictures with his parents' handheld Nikon. Mika tags after Mob and climbs up on Arataka's bed when Mob lies around in basketball shorts and nothing else because of August's slow, goopy heat. She loves when a dozen sticks go whizzing through the air and she tries to grab all of them, Mob laughing, hair seaweeding gently as his powers glow.

At school, they're rarely seen apart. "Where's your shadow?" people will ask Arataka; "Where's your other half?" they'll ask Mob. Mob always laughs and reassures Arataka that he doesn't mind being his shadow. Arataka knows better, however. He sees how much Mob's powers develop. Any sudden, extreme emotion always bends the reality around them. Once, in a silly argument over who the better leaf-type Pokémon is, Mob snapped at him and all the cars on their street gave a sickening lurch and lifted a good meter off the ground, only sinking down when Mob had calmed.

Mob is not his shadow. If anything else, it's Arataka who's Mob's shadow, helpless against that blinding blue light. But he is not afraid of the supernova compressed inside, never. Mob is his best friend, his brother, his family. There is nothing to fear.

Not until they're in the fifth grade and some high school punks run past them and snatch their New Year's envelopes filled with money from their parents, hooting and hawing.

"Hey!" Arataka barks at the cocksure teens nearly twice his size, hackles rising. "You give that back right now." Mob puts a nervous hand on his shoulder but he doesn't back down. "We've seen your faces and we can tell a sketch artist at the police station. My dad is a lawyer and can lock you guys up."

Their ringleader sneers and surges forward, getting a fistful of Arataka's sweater and hoisting him up. Oh shit this is way less fun than when Mob does this to him. Oh shit why did he think these Neanderthals would even have the logic to process his very real threat, much less not steal from kids.

"You talk big game for such a small half-breed. We can just fuckin' kill you," the high schooler who's holding him up says, and his goons laugh along.

"Reigen!" Mob yells, trying to reach for him, and one of the teens flings him hard enough against the stone hedge behind him that his head bounces. A stunned yelp escapes him, eyes rolling back in his skull.

Arataka sees red.

He kicks the ringleader in the groin as hard as he can, enjoying the shriek as he's dropped, landing on his back. His satisfaction is very short-lived, because the two other teens are set to gang up on him but then—

It's as if all the color has been sucked from the day and the only thing that exists is darkness. The teens look back, confused, but Arataka already knows where, _who_ it's coming from. It swells out of Mob, shrouding him, clawing at the crisp air. A shockwave of not-light blasts out and takes chunks out of the walls and streets, knocks the teens down; with their bluster gone, they're screaming like children. They try to get up but they're slammed back down, one two three, until their heads are bleeding and they're not moving or making noise anymore.

Arataka has never seen blood before, not like this, not this much.

Despite the abject horror clogging his throat, he crawls, slowly, over to billowing mass there. When he's ascertained that he's close enough to be heard above the deafening roar of power, he screams, "Mob!" Something rips viscerally in his throat and it's painful to even whisper now, but he does not care. " _Shigeo_!"

The dark energy slows, subsides, until it's only crawling around Mob's skin like a terrible parody of his usual blue aura. Mob's head dips down to look at him, and his eyes are noonday suns, the hearts of stars, white and completely devoid of pupils, of recognition.

"We're okay!" he cries out. "We're okay, please, we're okay! Shigeo, it's Arataka, your best friend!"

Mob tilts his head, and opens his mouth. " d," something hisses, as though learning to speak, voice compressed like a bad tape recording, a worse nightmare. Arataka bites his tongue to quell the urge to shriek. The thing that's hissing smiles, and says, words coming clearer, "Mob needs you." And then the eyes close, the energy recedes, and Mob is blinking at him, the real Mob, little-kid eyes frightened and filling with tears.

"Reigen-kun!" he cries, dropping down to embrace him. Arataka tries to hug back but yips in pain; his clothes, along with the skin on his forearms and thighs and knees, have shredded, bits of gravel and dirt stuck to them. Mob looks at the damage, realization spreading on his face like petrol on water, and he sobs even harder. "Reigen, I'm sorry, I did this! I did this and I can't even remember doing it, I'm sorry!"

Arataka lets Mob bury his head between his neck and shoulder to wail, and also to block the motionless, bleeding teenagers from his line of sight.

His best friend, and whatever is hiding inside his best friend, does not need that.


	3. amaurotic

amaurotic (adj.): pertaining to any form of blindness that is accompanied by no obvious change to the eye.

"It was an accident."

Reigen repeats this over and over: to the concerned neighbors who heard all the noise, to the paramedics who nurse him and wheel away the unconscious teens on gurneys, and even to his parents, his hysterical father and his silent, trembling mother. "They attacked us and stole from us. Then they started arguing on how to split the money. They could have hurt me worse if Mob didn't protect me. We hid while they fought and when we came out they were all messed up."

Mob almost wishes he could believe him. Not once does he waver or change his story. His exact words vary just enough for it to appear as though the event is being recalled from memory, shining with more conviction about this incident more than adults have about anything their entire lives. Ever since Mob regained consciousness and Reigen, bloodied and resolute Reigen, was the first thing he ever saw, Mob can't stop looking at him; his eyes are thin beaten copper and Reigen is the magnet keeping them there.

The furious throbbing at the base of Mob's head has almost faded, hardly even a lump under his hair when he reaches back to feel it again. It's not fair that he's healing so fast, that he can't suffer right alongside his best friend like he deserves.

Night creeps up to whisk away the late afternoon sun when they're finally allowed to leave that sidewalk ( _crime scene_ , a voice hisses unprompted). Reigen's parents drive them to their house; they'd attempted to bring Mob back but the boys gripped hands and refused to let go.

Reigen's mother has to spoonfeed her son, or patches of dark red will blossom on Reigen's bandages and he'll whimper, tears escaping from his scrunched-up eyes. Mika circles them both, whining high and pitiful and she licks Reigen's feet. At some points Reigen's mother has to put her head in her hands and take deep shuddering breaths, probably wondering how on earth this could happen to her only child.

Mob sits with a glass of warm milk he can't bring himself to touch, mouth closed and mind empty.

They're settling down for the night in Reigen's room because they can't sleep in the tent like they usually do. They've been long since crashed into darkness by Reigen's father turning off the light, and Reigen has a whole cocktail of painkillers in him to knock him out. So Mob jolts on his futon when Reigen suddenly rasps, "You were possessed."

Mob cranes his neck so he can see Reigen above him, spread-eagled on his bed. There's a horizontal stripe of light from under the bedroom door, reflected in the mirror over the dresser and thrown back onto his face, just under his eyes. He continues, "That's the only explanation. Something got inside you and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Mob lets him finish, and says, doing his best to keep it together, "If it was a ghost or a spirit I would have felt it, seen it." He can't help it; his words creak, a tired house crumpling at the foundations. "It was me. It was all me, Reigen-kun."

"No, it wasn't. It talked about you. It used your voice to say your name." Reigen is unrecognizable in the dark, warped with something like fury. "Maybe you got cursed. Whatever it is, I'm gonna find a way to help you."

"You don't know if that's even possible." Mob is very ready to be done with this conversation. "You need to rest, goodnight."

Reigen stays silent for long enough that Mob wonders if he's fallen asleep, but his breath is too quiet, not the gurgling snore he usually emits. When did the knowledge get planted in Mob's brain, that he knows what Reigen sounds like even in the hours he's not awake? For nearly half his life now he's known his best friend, and today he could have died.

"Mob." He can't help it; he looks up at Reigen, who's looking right back, his anchor in an open ocean. "It's not your fault."

Mob starts crying without sound, without breath, tears wrestle themselves free of his eyes and running rivers down his cheeks. Relief floods through him, relief that has no place in his wretched body but he's too exhausted to deny himself the comfort. "Levitate my mattress down there," Reigen says, his hair rustling on the sheets as he tries to lift his head, because of course he knows Mob is crying. "Oi, that wasn't a request, damn it, I can't crawl down myself."

This is first time Mob has ever heard Reigen swear, and he tells the other boy as such, wiping his face on the hem of his shirt as his free hand floats Reigen to lay beside him, mattress and all. Reigen laughs it off. "When I get better, we'll go to the library, to my grandparents, and I'll even borrow Dad's computer to go on the internet. We're gonna be ghostbusters. You and me, buddy." Without meaning to, Mob slips into dreams, buoyed by his best friend's words.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 20%**

Thing start to get Weird when they enter middle school.

Given that they spend their usual weekends hunting paranormal creatures, this is a bold statement. But it happens.

Reigen gets a head start on growth spurts. He can sling his arm around Mob's neck and pin the other boy's face against his collarbone, stark angles and sharp points digging in. Mob struggles to keep up, growing pains and constant hunger and disappointingly squeaky voice taking him nowhere. On the other hand, people are compelled to listen when Reigen talks, voice drawled and deeper than a thirteen year old's should be, only a hint of a young-boy waver running underneath.

The only reason Tsubomi and other people from grade school even recognize Mob as an acquaintance is Reigen. Mob watches Reigen attract all manner of attention and keep them engaged, whereas he can barely greet Tsubomi good morning without tripping over invisible blocks of air.

Somewhere between the case where they cleanse Honeido Tunnel and the one where they dress in drag to sneak into St. Highso Girls' Academy and help Reigen's cousin get rid of a poltergeist (Reigen even wearing lipstick and a padded bra to sell his character), Mob realizes it. Reigen could have so many other people better suited for being his best friend, yet at the end of the day, it's Mob who he walks home with, splits crepes with, throws utterly ineffective salt at spirits with. The thought makes a soft animal tucked behind his ribcage purr with delight, and it's all very Weird, though he doesn't know why.

He's been trying so hard to build a barricade around his emotions, to stay calm and not let them get the best of him and his powers. Behind the barricade go his frustration at his classes and his anger at himself, his fear of the future and his envy of normalcy. But no matter how many bricks he lays to wall those emotions in, Reigen keeps coming back with a sledgehammer. Mob doesn't know whether to be grateful or helpless in the face of this whirlwind that is his best friend. If all roads lead to Rome, all paths in Mob's life have led to Reigen, and he wonders sometimes if that's a bad thing, this borderline codependency on each other. He wants to ask Reigen himself but it feels like breaking a cardinal rule, somehow.

Reigen may know Mob inside-out, but it goes both ways. So when Reigen grows more sullen and withdrawn in the months before their first year ends, Mob knows to press the issue.

"Are you alright, Reigen-kun?"

He asks this question in a relatively calm setting, sitting under the thin trees in the Kageyamas' yard one Sunday morning while they study for their upcoming history exam. Reigen lifts his head to peer at Mob, eyes red and gritty from more than information overload. "What makes you ask that?" he asks back, airy and unaffected, adjusting how he's lying on his stomach.

Mob proceeds with caution. "Well… I know how bad things can get at home. Do you want to talk about it?"

Reigen glances away, running a hand through his hair, unruly clumps poking up between his fingers. He does not speak, but that is enough for Mob to know.

(Here is what they both know: Reigen's parents are fighting bad enough that they don't try to hide it from him anymore, and the house is silent, wicked with tension. Almost always about the grandparents on his father's side never approving of his American wife, of their grandson talking more in English than in Japanese when he was younger, and so on, and so on. Reigen hears their bedroom door snick closed and then the voices rising through the walls, lying in bed listening to it and staring at the ceiling, and he hears his father stalking down the hallway a few bad hours later, sees the blanket and mashed pillow on the living room couch in the morning.)

Mob knows what's wrong, but he knows Reigen needs to vent, as he's always done before. But this time, Reigen just shrugs and offers a tired smile so out of place on his face. "I have no right to complain. You deal with worse stuff than me."

This comes as such a surprise that Mob is stricken dumb for a few long moments, before he decides to copy Reigen and get on his stomach too, not caring about the grass stains he'll get on his shirt. Reigen watches him do it, puzzled, until there's only half a foot of space between their faces down here on the ground.

Mob takes a deep breath. "Just because my problems are…"—he fumbles for the appropriate word— "different, that doesn't mean yours don't matter anymore. You always help me with mine. I want to help too, even if all I can do is listen."

Reigen has fallen silent, watching Mob watch him. The expression on Reigen's face strikes a chord deep in Mob, eyes turned down at the corners, a dim vein of hope amid the distress. "That goes for you too, okay?" he says, suddenly, and Mob blinks. "Don't think I haven't noticed you getting quieter. Not laughing or getting angry or anything. Don't disappear on me, Mob. I won't if you won't."

They both contemplate what's been said in comfortable quiet. Reigen smiles at nothing in particular, smudged at the edges, soft and sincere. The Weird feeling returns, Mob mesmerized and confused for reasons he can't explain. But then his mom yells for them to come eat lunch, and Reigen shoots up, claiming starvation, and promptly trips on his awkward janky legs. Mob snorts an undignified laugh, and they're just two best friends poking fun at each other; nothing more, nothing less.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 35%**

Ritsu is enjoying his afternoon nap, snuffling and trying to kick his legs under the green blankets that have cocooned him. Mob stares with rapt devotion into the crib. He's a big brother now. The words still hang on him so strangely, like a shirt he'll have to grow into. It's such a surprise, even all these months later; then again, Ritsu's whole existence is pretty surprising. Mob is 14 years older, his parents not at the conventional age to even consider having another child, and yet here they are.

Reigen has finished unbuttoning his gakuran and joins Mob's silent contemplation. He chuckles, pats the stuffed animal beside Ritsu that he and his family had given as one of the gifts for the baby shower: a perfectly fat fox, spherical like a dumpling, with tiny stubs for limbs and a placid flat face. "I see Mochi Fox is still here."

"He cries if it's not near him," Mob says, a smile on his face. "We have to wash it once a week because he keeps drooling on it."

"Boy, you guys are spoiling him rotten," Reigen laughs. "You've been staring at him for a while, what are you thinking about?"

Mob is thinking about his earliest memories, being three or four years old and hearing murmured conversations around staircases, behind closed doors. _they're wondering if we'll have another child, what if it's like shigeo, i know we both love him but it gets difficult._ He's thinking about the parade of medical tests and aura cleanses, trying to see if his 'condition' could be cured. He's thinking about his mother's clear eyes and untapped courage telling them about the vision she had in her sleep, of a kind smile and outstretched hands, the night before she found out she was pregnant again. Ritsu has come along when nobody was paying attention and their father still wipes at his eyes when he holds him, calls him a miracle.

Mob is thinking, _this is their second chance. they can raise the normal kid they always wanted, the kid they deserve._ But he doesn't know if he can say this out loud, even to Reigen. Especially to Reigen. He shrugs instead. "He's just really cute," and at least that isn't a lie, just a different kind of truth.

"Do you think he might show powers when he grows up?"

Mob's hands twitch, static energy crawling up his arms. Reigen didn't mean anything by asking that, it was genuine curiosity. Mob has to remember how to breathe. "I don't know," he manages. "Mine were just always there, from the moment I was born."

From the corner of his eye, he can see Reigen look at him, really look this time, still as a photograph preserved behind glass. He says, "You're relieved he's not like you." His tone leaves no room for _if_ s or _maybe_ s; he knows.

A wrecked laugh twists Mob's throat before he can stop it. "So relieved."

"Why?"

"You _know_ why." Mob's voice goes to tatters like wet newspaper, unable to stop himself because of how uncharacteristically stupid Reigen's being right now. His hair is rising like a trapped cat's. "You know _damn_ well why, you're wearing the reason why on your skin every day and walking beside it t-to school…"

Mob hears his stutter and hates it, hates that it makes him sound scared when he's not, not anymore. He almost killed Reigen and three other people three years ago, almost crushed the life out of them even though he wasn't even conscious, but Mob is alright now. He has to be. "Ritsu should never have my powers. He can't." His nails are digging into the soft meat of his palms to keep everything in this room on solid ground. "Nobody deserves to be cursed like this. To hurt people they care about."

"Shigeo-kun." Mob flinches and looks up from his socked feet. Reigen hasn't used his given name in a long time. He grips Mob's shoulders and spins him around so he has no choice but to look into Reigen's burnt-wood eyes, determination congealing inside them. "Listen to me. I've never blamed you for what happened; not then, not now. We already know it was an accident. Your powers themselves aren't a curse. They're tools. That's why we're going around exorcising the city, to see how you can use and then control your powers. We've been helping human spirits pass to the afterlife, destroying evil ones, and rescuing other people, all because of your powers."

Mob lets him finish his monologue, and states flatly, "You keep saying 'we' as though you're feeling exactly what I'm going through." The thought sounds more hurtful now that he's said it out loud, but Reigen doesn't even blink.

"You're right, I don't. All I have is my compassion." He lets go of Mob's shoulders to strike a pose that Mob recognizes from 'Junk Food Fighter Michael,' and Mob doesn't know whether to laugh or cry from how much he cherishes his ridiculous best friend. "But I'm staying by you. Like a barnacle, like a noble parasite!"

Mob chuckles, a strangely helpless sound, and swipes at the corners of his eyes with his sleeve. "Thank you, Arataka-kun."

Reigen grins like a fool, surprised by Mob's use of his first name, and so, so warm, diffusing through Mob and curling around his bones. But then Reigen blinks, and yelps, arms flailing a bit; to Mob's dismay, everything in the room has started levitating, even Ritsu's crib, _Ritsu_.

Mob panics, whips his head towards his baby brother, but Ritsu isn't even bothered by this unusual wakeup call. He's burbling, giggling and reaching for his stuffed fox, which is drifting just above him.

Reigen laughs, clean and joyful as a bell. "See? He's okay with it. He'll be fine. _We'll_ be fine."

For the first time since the accident, Mob feels like he can finally believe his best friend.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 46%**

Mob clears out his textbooks slow, as always, waiting for Reigen to come pick him up. He mourns no longer being in the same section as Reigen like it was last year; he has a sneaking suspicion the teachers didn't like how glued to the hip they were, and wanted them apart for once. The waning sun is hooked on a cloudless sky; perfect weather for hunting ghosts, as Reigen would say. Then again, he says that no matter what the heavens throw at them.

"Kageyama-kun!"

Mob looks up. The classroom is mostly empty save for a boy at the door, sweaty and jittering. It takes Mob a while to recognize him. "Ah, Mameta-kun, right?" He has very vague memories of Mameta Inukawa from grade school, mostly of the other boy ogling his psychic powers from a very far, very safe distance.

"I'm so glad you remember me! Can you come with me right now, please?"

"That doesn't sound fishy at all."

Mameta startles with a yip and turns to glower at Reigen, who's snuck up behind him with a smirk twisting the corner of his mouth. "Hello, Reigen-kun… Ah!" Mameta beams again, a little less nervous. "You two are the only members left in the going-home club, right? We need you to join us, the Telepathy Club!"

Reigen gives Mameta a piercing once-over, forehead and nose creased like he's caught wind of something rank. "I don't know what the hell's going on, nor do I wanna know. C'mon, Mob."

Mob nods, ready to escape Mameta's strange behavior, and picks up his school bag. Mameta panics, and blocks the doorway with his entire body so Mob can't leave and Reigen can't come in. "Can you at least meet our president?" he wails, limbs akimbo not unlike a clumsy spider's, spinning a pitiful trap. " _Please_? Just hear us out?"

Reigen and Mob blink at each other, and Reigen heaves a sigh like a bellows, long and frustrated. "The sooner this happens, the sooner you leave us alone?"

Mameta strong-arms them to one of the clubrooms filled with strange posters, junk food, game consoles, and teen regret. "President! I've found the last two people who aren't in any clubs or committees, Reigen Arataka and Kageyama Shigeo!" Mameta chirps to the only girl in the room, speaking so fast he's only barely understandable.

"Perfect!" The girl claps her hands together with a sly look on her face, introducing the other members before herself: Kurata Tome, a third-year with a rather manic air of glee, almost as dramatic as Reigen (but only almost).

Mob muses fondly, "Ah, Tome? That's my grandmother's name too."

"See, that's fate at work right there, this was meant to happen!" Kurata gasps, and bows, extending a desperate hand. "Please join the Telepathy Club, we only need one more member!"

At Mob's side, Reigen rolls his eyes so hard Mob can almost hear it. "Mob," he groans, not even looking at Kurata, "I've _met_ your actual Grandma Tome. Her salmon sashimi makes me see the face of Buddha himself, I adore her. And I know for a fact she'd beat both our asses if we ever participate in this nonsense."

Kurata bristles, claws and fangs and barbed-wire body. "I don't think she'd appreciate you being bums without extracurriculars, it's not like you have anything better to do!" she hisses.

"We have an exorcism to perform, so please excuse us," Reigen scoffs.

"Wait, exorcism?" Mameta chortles. "Are you guys still on about fighting spirits and stuff? Didn't you grow out of that by now?"

Mob lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "It's more of exercises to control my psychic powers, really," he offers.

"Psychic powers my ass, stop being weird and just join our club," Kurata says darkly.

Mob tries to think of what to say, but Reigen's hand closes around his arm, solid and familiar. Something about the way he stands makes him seem taller, somehow, far more imposing. "Well, that's just the pot calling the kettle black," he spits. "Considering you just need us and our psychic-ness to keep your room and budget for a club about _telepathy_ from being abolished, I guess we're both weird. We're just gonna be weird our separate ways, far, far away from you."

Kurata gasps, her bottom lip quavering, "A-are you saying you don't care if our club gets abolished?" Mob is alarmed that she'll honest-to-goodness start crying, but Reigen just laughs in her face.

"I know snot-nosed kids who can do crocodile tears way more convincingly than you. Sorry, senpai, today isn't your day."

Reigen waves as he pulls Mob backwards through the door, and they walk away from Kurata's enraged screeching. "Wow, well that was something," he chuckles. "You okay? Sorry if I was a little gruff in there."

Mob is dazed from the speed at which this bizarre social interaction has unfolded. He looks down to see that Reigen is still holding his arm, firm but not at all uncomfortable. Reigen notices too, and withdraws with a quick apology. Mob doesn't want him to apologize. He likes how it felt. "Aren't you sad we did that to them?" he asks instead, to distract himself.

"They can still be friends that do everything they wanna do without leeching off of school funds," Reigen huffs as they step out of the school and into the relentless light. "Besides, I'm classmates with one of the people in that new club, Sagawa. Body fitness, or something. If ever we join a club, that's one that sounds fun." He draws the word _fun_ out so it drips in sarcasm, Reigen's only mood when it comes to clubs.

Mob contemplates many things before he falls asleep that night. He thinks about how nearly every day for the past eight years of his life, Reigen has been within reach; about interacting with someone else for once; about the strange worrisome fixation he has on his best friend that's been growing inch by painstaking inch. He thinks about impressing Tsubomi, and wonders immediately after why that idea wasn't his very first motivation for what he's going to do.

The next day, he fills out a form to join the Body Improvement Club and Reigen is too surprised to dissuade him from it.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 55%**


	4. daedal

daedal (adj.): complex in design or function, difficult to comprehend

Mob has joined a fitness club because he's somehow forged a connection between a strong physique and a way of impressing Tsubomi. Reigen himself is no slob, still going out on his bike with Mika leashed to the handlebars. But he's not willing to torture himself to the point where he passes out and needs to be lugged like a sack of rice by Goda Musashi. The illogical decision Mob's made is somehow justified by one simple explanation: young love addles the brain.

But Reigen still doesn't _understand_.

He mulls this over as he pats Mob's very sweaty arm with a tentative hand. Mob is guzzling the bottle of Gatorade Reigen bought after Sagawa told him what happened, his ragged wheezing bouncing off the scuffed tiles in the school bathroom. Reigen has his hip notched against the sink that Mob is standing at, Mob's blanched face haunting the mirror.

"You're really doing this much hard work to impress Tsubomi-chan?" Reigen asks, and Mob is slow to hear him, addled by exhaustion, blinking slowly.

"Ah. Yes. I suppose I also want to better myself." He opens the tap and leans closer to splash some water on the back of his neck. Some droplets splatter onto his P.E. shirt, snake down underneath his collar.

Still incredulous, Reigen passes him the fluffy white towel that Body Improvement loaned him. "You 'suppose.'"

Mob dithers a moment too long. "…Yes."

Reigen snorts, and steps back so he's leaning against the wall. There is a water stain up there on the ceiling, brown and blistered soft. The school should fix that. "Why do you like Tsubomi anyway?"

Another pause, and Mob tilts his head in distant confusion. "W-well, she's pretty, wonderful, nice…"

"Surely there has to be more than that." Reigen doesn't mean to sound harsh or interrogative; he's just genuinely confused. He's never liked someone with the long-burning fervor that Mob has for Tsubomi. Valentine's Day and White Day are a bore to him, the kissing scenes he sees on TV a mystery. All this wouldn't bother him, but he is the outlier in what he fears is the entire human race. Reigen wonders if there is something wrong with him, somehow, a stopped clock whose missing parts are within sight, within reach, and yet unattainable.

Reigen really doesn't know what the fuss is about, but he wants to. He needs to. "I need to understand what I'm missing, c'mon, what is it about—"

"She's like you," Mob blurts out, and immediately goes tomato-red once he realizes what it sounds like. Reigen, for some reason, feels his brain stutter. Mob scrambles to finish, forcing the words out of his mouth into the air, like stones and coins dropped in unfamiliar fountains. "I-I mean she…she doesn't treat me differently for having psychic powers. She's never been scared or unsure of how to act around me. She's nice not because of who I am, but because that's how she is as a person. And. Well, you're like that too, Arataka-kun." Mob takes a breath; speaking this much for this long is a novelty coming from him. Reigen knows this is the apt time to make a joke, and so he tries. Desperately.

"So your standard of crushes is that they have to be like me? I'm flattered, Mob-kun." He sounds so strange to his own ears. He sounds—flustered, and Reigen Arataka does not do _flustered_.

Mob smiles. "Is that so wrong? You're a good person, Arataka-kun. Of course the one I like is good too."

There is a sensation tickling Reigen's ribs, and he wonders if it's the infamous butterflies that people talk and sing and cry about having in their stomachs when it comes to crushes. He thinks this must be a fluke; he's never had a crush before, and he certainly shouldn't have his first crush be the one person who's been his best friend since they were six years old.

"Well, that's very nice, but I guess I won't like a girl that way, the way you do." he manages to say, flicking his hand to the ether. "It'll always be foreign territory for me, I fear."

Mob nods, scrubs at his face with the towel. "By the way, Tome-san tried to ask me if I could help her find telepaths so she could contact aliens."

And with one sentence that offends logic so irreparably, Reigen gets distracted by going on another angry rant, and the conversation that has just transpired is nudged into a corner for now.

* * *

Reigen is on the computer, praying to all the deities he knows that neither of his parents will receive or make phone calls, or his internet searching on Mogami Keiji will stop loading. He still can't believe the psychic whose TV shows he'd watch while sitting on his grandparents' laps simply hanged himself. He wonders if there was foul play, though he doubts it's worth investigating something that happened a decade ago.

He's become more of a recluse these days, unused to being alone after school. Not having Mob beside him when he goes to the library or snoops around for stories isn't as fun, not to mention easy. He's glad for Mob's new friends, the Schwarzenegger wannabes and even the telepathy weirdos (Kurata doesn't hate his guts as much anymore since both clubs are now sharing the same room in a show of pity from Body Improvement). He's feeling a little bereft, if he's being honest with himself.

Mika, who's been dozing under the desk with her head on Reigen's feet, rolls over for belly rubs, and Reigen chuckles, digs into her ribs with his toes. Being the last true member of the going-home club is still an honorable thing.

He's just finished bookmarking some articles when he hears the muffled creak of something like his window, and then a hard thump. Mika snaps to attention and skitters after the intrusion. Reigen boots down the computer and follows her out of his father's study and into his bedroom.

Mob has never come in by sneaking through the window before. In fact, Mob hasn't been to Reigen's house at all, ever since the accident in grade school. Mika's whole body is wagging with delight as she runs circles around Mob, demanding attention, but she's hardly even spared a glance. Mob's face floats ghostly above his gakuran, pale streak against the black downpour outside. He's drenched, he's shuddering, he's staring at Reigen like a cry for help and—

Reigen darts forward and yanks down Mob's collar before the other boy can stop him. There are bruises curling frondlike around the thin skin of his neck, discolored with hateful crimson. Mob is trembling not just because of the cold now, staring at the wet trail he's left from landing on the floor.

"What happened," Reigen hears himself ask, the shock wearing off to be replaced with mercurial wrath at whoever dared to do this, his arms going numb from the sheer intensity of it. "Mob. _Shigeo-kun_."

Mob opens his mouth to speak but all that comes out is a ruptured croak, and seeing his face contort in agony guts Reigen. " _Fuck,_ " — Mob jumps, as shocked by the vicious swear as Reigen himself is —"okay, don't talk, get out of those wet clothes before you get sick."

He grabs a shirt and sweatpants and throws them onto his bed for Mob, and storms out to call the Kageyamas and inform them that Mob will be staying here for an impromptu sleepover. As Mob's father laughs and agrees, Reigen can hear baby Ritsu burbling, perhaps nestled close, trying to play with the phone cord.

Reigen is glad that Mob, sweet and infuriatingly gentle Mob, is the one who has these powers and not him. He'd salt and burn the entire earth as vengeance for his best friend, right about now.

When he reenters his room, Mob's petting Mika as they sit in the middle of the floor, dressed in Reigen's clothes. Mika's head is burrowing into his lap, a goofy smile on her face as her tongue lolls sideward. Mob has to push his wet bangs out of his eyes to look up at Reigen, ashamed, as though he's somehow to blame for this. Reigen grabs his towel and stands behind Mob to dry his hair. The steady clatter of rain outside is the only sound that exists.

"It was my fault." Reigen freezes at Mob's husky voice, scraped from the very bottom of his vocal chords, but he does sound better than he did earlier. "I fell for a phony love letter."

"A phony love letter is what got your neck crushed?" Reigen asks flatly, withdrawing the towel. He sits on the floor in front of Mob as the other boy begins explaining, in slow, halting mumbles: Onigawara Tenga's ploy, the Black Vinegar Private Middle School rumble with the Body Improvement Club. The whole time, he pets Mika, letting the repetitive strokes soothe them both. Mob falls silent in the midst of his recollection, his free hand tightening around his knee. "I did the bad thing again, Arataka-kun. I passed out and I wrecked the entire school and I h-hurt him."

"Is this 'him' the one who choked you until you almost died?" Reigen growls. Mob's helpless sigh is answer enough. "Then he had it coming. Anything you could've done to him still isn't enough for what he did to you."

"He was scared," Mob cries, too loud and making his face twist up from the strain, but he forces himself to continue. "He'd never met another esper before and—"

"He's an _esper_?" Reigen screeches. Gods above, esper or not, he's going to find this asshole and bleed him dry.

"He wasn't thinking properly, he didn't even use his powers when he – wh-when he…" Mob trails off, his breaths coming quicker until he's hyperventilating. A low tremor rocks the room, Reigen's book shelf and other furniture swaying against logical physics. Mika whines low and backs away into Reigen, ears flat against her skull. Mob's dilated eyes are unseeing, aimed at nothing and everything.

Reigen's heart has shattered, the shards puncturing his own lungs as he grabs Mob's icy hands and tries to squeeze them, rub the feeling into them. "Breathe, shh, please breathe, Mob, it's okay."

He sits with his best friend as the panic subsides and the room stops shaking. Mob's eyelids shutter down of their own accord, and he sways a little. Reigen slides up to support him, their foreheads notching together. He closes his eyes too, his anger simmering, overtaken by sorrow now instead.

"I made him understand that it's wrong to hurt people with psychic powers," Mob says, his breath coming in little puffs across Reigen's skin.

"And what about you?" Reigen retorts. "He's hurt _you_ , he should pay for that."

"Better that it happened to me than to anyone else, Arataka-kun. I can take it." Mob leans away, and Reigen follows suit, with reluctance. Mika has stayed sandwiched between them this whole time, looking up at her humans adoringly. Mob tries to adopt a positive tone. "I'm healing already, I'm talking now, aren't I? I just need to stay here until tomorrow so my parents don't see my… injuries."

Reigen knows there is no convincing him otherwise. He cradles Mob's chin to tilt his head and a strange rush of air is pulled out of Mob, his eyes unreadable. The bruises have gone from boiled-crab to grape-wine in color, already yellowed and greened at the edges. He's indeed healing fast, as he said.

"I can't lose you." The thought emerges from Reigen unbidden, his heart uttering what his mind can't fathom. It sounds too intimate, too overwhelming, but Mob shakes his head, reaching out to clutch at Reigen's arm.

"You won't. It's you who I can't lose."

Reigen frowns, and is about to ask Mob what those cryptic words mean, but then Mob kitten-sneezes, making Mika startle. Reigen gets up to fetch Mob warm milk and some medicine for his burgeoning cold, but he stands in his doorway for a while, watching Mika rub her body against Mob's sides in that misplaced feline behavior she gets when she's not given enough attention. He mostly watches Mob, his smile both carefree and burdened, eyes still damp with trauma, and forms his plan of attack.

* * *

After questioning the Body Improvement Club, and downright harassing Onigawara for the information he needs, Reigen takes his bike and rides to Black Vinegar Mid as soon as classes end. The school even _looks_ expensive, brick walls and high arched windows trimmed gold, the perfect place to shelter a self-centered brat.

He debates with himself for a few long moments before slipping out of his gakuran's shirt to sling it over his shoulder. Without the long sleeves, his scars are visible, viciously silver lines like glass that's been pressured into cracking but never breaking. Mob has never liked looking at them; Reigen knows he does his best to ignore the evidence of the accident from years ago. But he takes pride in these scars, and they serve a purpose here. The private school kids take one look at him and shy away from the tough-looking stranger, maybe assuming he's also in the rival school's gang.

The local thugs aren't hard to miss, loitering in the open lot as though waiting for any excuse to fight. Reigen puts as much slinking confidence into his gait as possible, striding towards them. Their faces snap around to him, all plasters and bruises and black eyes. There are four of them right now, and more are flocking over upon seeing him. He can escape this with his body intact. Probably.

"You've got some nerve coming here." The first boy to speak up is the leader, clear enough. The others close in on Reigen in a loose circle. In their purple uniforms they look like exotic bugs, ready to sting at the slightest provocation.

"I'm not here to start a fight of any sort," Reigen says, flapping his hand dismissively, his heartrate picking up even if he gives no outward sign. "I just want to speak to Hanazawa Teruki, no one else."

The boy blinks, digesting Reigen's words, before he bursts into uproarious laughter, his cronies following suit. "Pshaw, that lowlife? If you wanna do more damage to what's already been done to him, he's all yours." Reigen is relieved that they won't murder him, but is also quite confused. The boy points to one of the classrooms, still snorting with mirth. "There, you can't miss him."

Reigen indeed can't. Visible through the window, there's someone sitting alone, not enjoying the extracurriculars and the sunshine like his peers are. It's probably because his hair is piled high like a haystack in the most ridiculous wig Reigen has ever seen. He remembers Mob muttering fast about an accident with knives, and knows what must have taken place.

He strides into the building and down the needed hallway until he's darkened the right doorway. "Hanazawa."

The boy looks up from his desk where he's been doing schoolwork, handsome face carefully blank before it blooms in shock. Reigen wants to break his nose.

"…You're from Salt Mid. Did Onigawara send more 'friends' to fight for him again?" Hanazawa is posturing like the top dog he used to be, probably hoping he still holds power somewhere.

"No," Reigen says, low and even and venomous. "I'm Mob's friend. You know him as Kageyama Shigeo. I'm sure you remember him."

The atmosphere goes still and silent, dead as a stone. Fear weakens Hanazawa's mouth, slackens his shoulders. He tries so hard to hide it, but Reigen just scoffs. "Take off that sad excuse of a wig so I can take you seriously when I talk to you."

Defiance bubbles up again, and Hanazawa tries to whine, "But—"

"Do it."

The room gives a slight tremor as Hanazawa's face contorts, not unlike Mob's bursts of extreme emotion. This boy has more control over his powers, though, reigning it in. He clearly wants to strike Reigen, the hate coloring his eyes so vividly, but he doesn't do it.

Hanazawa tucks his fingers under his fake fringe and lifts those pounds of hair off himself and slowly sets it aside. He looks like an ochimusa. Reigen doesn't bother masking his dark chortle, riveted by the bareness of his boiled-egg head.

"Don't stare!" Hanazawa screeches. "You asked me to take it off and so I did. This is what he did to me!"

"And what you did?" Reigen retorts, the black ice of his voice stopping Hanazawa's heated tirade completely. "Nearly crushing his neck simply because you couldn't handle not being the special snowflake of this universe?"

The other boy has enough of a conscience to be ashamed. "I've changed! I've seen the error of my ways." He fidgets and looks out the window balefully. Given what Mob's told Reigen, this Hanazawa has been abusing his powers so much he's unused to dealing with problems where they can't solve it. He's been exiled for that now, this much is clear. No friends, no admirers, no hair, no dignity left.

Reigen knows that isn't punishment enough.

"You only changed because Mob is stronger than you." Reigen's volume is rising now, speaking faster the more furious he gets. "You conceded to his strength, not to the fact that psychic powers should never be used against other people, to harm and deceive. It's just immoral. He's not just the better esper, but the better person."

Not once do his eyes leave Hanazawa's, and the other boy is the one who rips his gaze away. Reigen snarls, "I'm neither of those things. I'm not an esper, or a good person. But if you try to hurt him again I will come for you. That's a promise."

Hanazawa's hands have balled up into fists, head angled towards the floor, but he nods, once. Reigen backs down. He didn't come all this way simply to deliver empty threats.

"There's something inside Mob. A power," he says, and Hanazawa jerks up to face him again, whites of his eyes visible. "Did you see it? It came out after he lost consciousness, right?"

After some moments, Hanazawa answers, "Yes. It was so strong. It could even drain the energy from me and literally everything, that's how powerful it was."

"Did it say anything?"

"I… I'm not sure. But it said something about me not being 'our' friend. I still don't understand why it said 'our…'"

A terror so real and true shakes Reigen to the foundations. It still remembered, after all these years. "Fuck," he groans under his breath, then turns his attention to Hanazawa again, who's looking at the scars on his arms with renewed interest, putting two and two together. Reigen hates to admit it, but the guy is perceptively smart. "Look, I hate your guts a lot but I have a feeling something is possessing Mob, or is at least stuck in his mind somehow, undetectable except for when he passes out. You're going to help me search on what can be wrong with him. I'll come meet you every two weeks." He grows more severe. "And that's not a request."

Hanazawa mulls this over, then nods again, slow. "Very well, Reigen-san."

"We're the same age, idiot."

"Really? You act older."

Reigen scoffs and rolls his eyes. "See you, ochimusa."

Hanazawa goes blotchy with rage again, but one look from Reigen is all it takes for him to keep silent. As Reigen walks away, he can hear the other boy grumbling curses under his breath as he struggles to jam his wig back onto his head.

* * *

Days after what happened with Hanazawa, Reigen has time to think things through.

Mob has withdrawn, shuttered and impassive at extremes. Since the accident when they were younger, Mob indeed grew more subdued, but he's never disappeared into himself like this. This frightens Reigen more than any psychic monster ever could.

He realizes why Mob feels the way he does, and what it'll take for him to snap out of it. It's either inspired genius or insipid absurdity, or both.

It takes a week to prepare Reigen's plan. Goda and the rest of Body Improvement take on the bizarre task with such enthusiasm Reigen can't believe that there's no ulterior motive behind their willingness to help. As it turns out, they're just good people. Reigen has to smile at that, sometimes. Even the former Telepathy Club has joined his cause, with Kurata grumbling about doing this to get closer to Mob and make him look for aliens with her, or something. It's all going well.

But it doesn't make him any less teeth-chatteringly nervous about what he's going to do next.

"Mob!" Reigen chortles, loping up to his best friend. He's doing his best to be at ease in this locker room that stinks unavoidably of deodorant and sour sweat.

Mob has changed into his PE uniform, and is in the process of stowing his gakuran into his locker. There's nothing on his face when his eyes meet Reigen's, looking like a photograph in a magazine, empty like that. "Ah, Arataka-kun…?"

"I need to tell you something quick before you go off to do your—" Reigen flaps his hand around as he struggles to find a word— "buffing up. C'mon."

"I've realized something just recently," Reigen babbles as he saunters into the school's auditorium, louder than his regular attention-grabbing volume, buying time. Mob trails behind him, the gray stone and dust smell of the hall surrounding them both. "I'm sorry I haven't told you sooner but you got so busy and I needed to make sure…"

They come to a stop in front of the stage. Reigen spins to face Mob, and declares, "I've got psychic powers now!"

Mob blanches, his mouth working like a dying fish's. It's the complete opposite of encouragement that Reigen desperately needs, but he powers on. "Look!"

He waves his hand and the overhead lights snap on one by one, the darkness scattering like crows. The props that have been abandoned from the last school production begin floating, cardboard trees and rolled-up tarps disturbing the curtains, whispering over the worn cloth. Some heavier things like chairs and tables are also rising to abandon gravity. Reigen turns back to Mob, brandishing a wide grin he does not believe in. "Obviously I'm not as skilled or strong as you but I think—"

"Arataka-kun, stop."

Even here under the burning yellow lights Mob's eyes are so, so dark. Reigen can't remember Mob's eyes ever being this dark. He panics, going into his backup plan.

"Uh… look!" He fumbles into his pockets for his pack of cards, trying to spread the deck out without slipping. "If you pick a card I can guess which one it is right away!"

The cards fly out of his grasp to cling stubbornly to the air, and the objects onstage freeze, coated in the telltale blue glow. Kurata swears colorfully and the boys rumble in confusion behind the curtains where they've been manipulating everything. They've been had.

Mob is staring at Reigen with an indescribable air of. Grief. "Why are you pretending to have psychic powers? Why would you even want…" Mob chokes up, and Reigen's blood runs cold. Mob thinks he's being mocked, and Reigen is _such an idiot_.

"I want to prove to you that psychic powers aren't bad, that they don't make _you_ bad," Reigen rushes to say. In the corner of his eye, he sees their schoolmates emerge from behind the curtains, though they know better than to interrupt this delicate moment. "If I had psychic powers and could do the things you do, would you think it's okay for me to stop caring or feeling about everything?"

"Of course not," Mob says before Reigen's even finished his sentence, so fiercely, with so much dismay that his hair starts to billow.

Reigen sighs, twitches his arms about in frustration. "You do so many great things, you've saved so many people from ghosts and spirits but you can't do it alone, you shouldn't have to. You're just such a good person and I can't help you the way you deserve."

There it is, the crux of the matter. All this has been done because Reigen doesn't know how to unburden his best friend anymore, can't even look him in the eye anymore, and it's killing him as much as it's killing Mob.

"You _do_ help me." Reigen gazes up at Mob at last, and his face has softened, staring at Reigen with such fondness it's almost overwhelming. "Even without psychic powers, you already do great things too. I could never have done any of the things you said without you. You've always been great to me, Taka-chan."

The endearment jolts through Reigen like he's licked a socket, filled his tongue with pop rocks; it numbs his usually clever mouth and works its way through him. He keeps hearing 'taka-chan' on a loop, hot-breath-on-cold-glass kind of fog overtaking his mind, and he doesn't know _why_.

(He knows precisely why. Mob is smiling at him so sweetly, so trusting, so certain. Uncomfortable flipped sensation in Reigen's chest, everything turned upside down.)

"O-okay." Reigen tries to hide his stammer. "So. Don't hide from me anymore." Wait, that still sounds wrong. "Don't hide from your friends, your family. Yourself. You may not believe in yourself but I do. We all do. If you can't believe yourself, believe us."

Goda and Kurata and the others cheer in agreement, coming down the stage steps to surround them, a new circle of friends, a safety net, others for Mob to rely on. But it's come too late. Mob has eyes for no one but Reigen, steady center of a hurricane.

Reigen's heart thuds in a disjointed off-rhythm. He flushes with nervousness suddenly, terribly confused and with a scratching hot feeling in his stomach that feels worse than anger. _oh no_ , he thinks belatedly, watching Mob's mouth curl up into another gentle smile. _oh no_.


	5. hysteresis

hysteresis (n.): a hindrance of the effect when the forces acting upon something are changed

Mob knocks on Reigen's door and waits to be let in. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, trying to warm himself up in the stark shuddering midst of autumn. His parents chatter behind him, fussing over Ritsu in his baby carrier. At length, Reigen opens the door, shined up like a new penny, fifteen at last.

Mob says softly, "Happy birthday, Arataka-kun," and Reigen smiles, the simple smile that means he's just glad to see Mob. A breath sticks in Mob's lungs for half a second, a skipped beat.

"You just get taller every time we see you! Like a bean sprout," Mob's mother laughs as they step out of their shoes and shed their coats. She fondly pinches Reigen's cheek. "You're getting more handsome every day too. I'm offended no girl has thought to snag you yet."

" _Auntie_ ," Reigen complains, trying to duck away and tripping into pats on the back from Mob's chortling father, who utters, "He's still young, dear, there's plenty of time."

Reigen and Mob exchange incredulous looks, and snicker. It feels good to be so in sync with someone, Mob thinks. "Are those for me?" Reigen asks to divert the topic of conversation, nodding towards the wrapped red box in Mob's hands topped with a cheery bow.

"We baked cookies," Mob's mother grinned. "Mob helped."

Reigen gasps, as though the Kageyamas have not been bringing him pastries for his past few birthdays without fail. It's not that Reigen has a sweet tooth, but where Mob himself prefers savory snacks, Reigen prefers anything, as long as it's manageably edible. He wonders where all the food Reigen eats goes. It's a mystery not even the supernatural can explain.

"Thank you, Auntie and Uncle! And you too, Ritsu, I'm sure you did the most work." Reigen reaches down to rub Ritsu's little socked feet. Ritsu awakens and promptly begins crying, fussy over the unfamiliar surroundings. Mob's parents go on ahead into the house to protect Ritsu from the biting breeze.

Mika has hobbled towards Mob, a little late in greeting. Her twelve years of age have finally caught up with her, and her joints don't bend easily anymore. All the same, her now graying muzzle still rubs along Mob's thigh, demanding attention. Reigen laughs, and waves Mob over. "C'mon, keep your coat and shoes on. I have cousins I only barely recognize that I have to escape from."

They sneak through the throng of relatives for the safety of the backyard, skeletons of leaves crunching underneath them as they walk towards the tire swing. It doesn't fit either of them as comfortably as they used to when they'd push each other as kids, but Reigen sits anyway. Mika huffs at the cold and makes herself comfortable by the pup tent.

Mob has to remember to breathe, overtaken by nerves he's tried to repress all this time. He sets the larger gift box inside the tent to reveal the smaller box that's been hidden from view, wrapped hastily in parchment paper. "I got you a separate gift, Arataka-kun."

Reigen's eyes widen, and he claps his hands together, rubbing them with glee, or perhaps to warm them up. "Aww, Mob-kun," he coos, but Mob can tell that Reigen's genuinely touched. "You didn't have to—"

Mob shoves the box into Reigen's arms before he can speak any more and ruin Mob's resolve. Reigen huffs a laugh and takes the hint, tearing the wrapped edges and popping open the box inside.

"I made these for you. Um. By myself." Mob's heart is in his throat. The lopsided frosting and sprinkles are a little smushed in the box, alternating pink and green. At least the vanilla cupcakes are intact.

"All by yourself?" Reigen asks. He sounds strange, faraway. Unsure, for some reason. "Auntie didn't help?"

Mob flushes with shame. "I-I'm sorry if they don't look or even taste good, I've never made them alone before and—!"

Reigen has shoved an entire half in his mouth, cheeks puffed in concentration as he chews, and Mob can see the moment his eyes go cross-eyed as he quells the urge to gag. Mob can see the little clumps of unmixed flour in the middle and the burnt bottom of the cupcake that's been masked by the festive cupcake liner. He wants to die of shame. "Oh no, oh… Reigen, I'm so sorry, I'll make a better batch and give it to you tomorrow, please hand that here—"

Mob reaches out for the box but Reigen yowls, " _No_ ," and proceeds to try to stuff his face with all five remaining cupcakes, prancing away. Mob splutters and tries to chase after him, and Mika follows, thinking it's a game of tag. The whole situation is so ridiculous that Mob bursts into laughter. He almost misses how the bare branches of the tree that the tire swing hangs from suddenly explodes with fresh green growth where there was once empty bark. In his shock, he runs right into Reigen. They end up a tangled mess on the ground, laughing as Mika licks the frosting that has smudged on their faces.

They find themselves seated in the pup tent, fighting their way through the desiccated cupcakes. Mob starts listing what went wrong, murmuring to himself through mouthfuls. "Mm, okay, the batter was under mixed, the oven wasn't set at the right temperature, and there was too much sugar in the icing…" He catches Reigen staring at him. "What?"

"You didn't have to do this for me."

It's there again, this new slant to Reigen's voice that Mob doesn't recognize; honest, earnest, yearning. He's not sure what it is, or how to feel about it, so he lets it slide. "Well… I wanted to. So I did. And. I think it calms me." Mob pulls his knees up to his chest as he watches Mika bite the leg of his pants. "Watching Mom work at her restaurant and practicing her recipes makes the whole process comforting, to me. So baking itself is nice."

Mob grew up with hands painted in flour from grabbing onto the edge of the kitchen counter and peeking at the pastries being rolled and mixed, and then watching them unfurl and golden in the oven. It was more magical than psychic powers, to his young eyes, and he was quite convinced his mother was an ethereal being of culinary arts. He still thinks so.

Reigen nods in that pensive, understanding way of his. "I'm happy you have an anchor like that. Mainly because that means I get more free sweets the more you bake, but other perks are good too." He gives an impish snicker, but then stops. He frowns and sniffs at the wind outside, and Mob is confused until the pungent smell twists and ribbons around his own nose.

They poke their heads out of the tent and see Reigen's father with a cigarette tucked at the corner of his mouth, lighting another for Mob's father, hands cupped around the whickering flame. Reigen's father startles when he catches a glimpse of Reigen's hair, reflecting the warm light from inside the house. "Ah, boys! Uh, we didn't know you were sitting there. Come on inside, you don't want to breathe the fumes."

Reigen has gone perfectly quiet as he and Mob emerge, Mika trailing behind. "You told Mom you were quitting," he says in a flat, disinterested voice.

"Ah, it's just the occasional stick," Mob's father soothes Reigen. "If you've never smoked before, you're missing out on half your life."

" _Literally_ ," Reigen's father jokes in English, as he releases the smoke in imperfect rings. Reigen storms away before they can say anything more, and Mob struggles to catch up.

They take up the couch, Ritsu between them as he burbles at Mika from his carrier. Not daring to look at the irascible, broken look on Reigen's face, Mob rests a hand on the back of Reigen's head. He watches his best friend's shoulders slump and lean back into his touch, looking far older than the seven months between them.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 47%**

A cold snap has everyone excited at the prospect of snow. Mob is swept up too, wondering if he can catch snowflakes on his tongue again like he once did years ago. Seasoning City in the winter was unreal, beauty like Mob had never known, everything smooth and endless. Mob had felt bundled and safe at five years old, wide-eyed staring at the December night's sky, because he had never in his life seen so many stars as he did then.

Musashi insists that the club find ways to do cardio even in this weather. Mob is walking out the gate on his way to check out the local gym for treadmills when he spots Hanazawa Teruki.

The other boy is wearing a strange pink sweater combined with his uniform slacks, a blue scarf coiled around his chin. Most noticeably, there is hair on his head, perhaps a wig that gives the appearance of a short, messy haircut. Hanazawa still has the same self-confidence broadening his shoulders, but it's dialed down, more amiable and less fox-trapped-in-barbed-wire. He jolts a little, when he realizes that Mob has seen him and is approaching. Mob is touching his neck without realizing it, trying not to think too hard about this situation.

"Ah. Kageyama-kun," Hanazawa says. He straightens up from the wall he was slouching against, playing it cool. "Hi."

Mob resists the impulse to shrink into his windbreaker, and does his best to be direct. "Hanazawa-kun? Hello. What are you doing here?"

Hanazawa rubs his face, pressing firmly over the jut of his cheekbone, looking strangely younger. "Well. I want to apologize. For…you know."

He's been humbled by their encounter, which relieves Mob. He still doesn't like violence, but this is _his_ school, his friends. If Reigen were to spot them right now and do an honorable, terrible idea like challenge Hanazawa to a fight, he'd have to step in. Thank goodness such measures are unnecessary. "I should be the one apologizing, really," Mob utters, in a meek attempt to deflect. "I did more damage than you did."

Hanazawa huffs a laugh, a little darker than Mob would be comfortable with, but he holds a hand out anyway. "Let's both apologize and leave it at that?"

" _Oi_."

Mob's heart turns over. He can hear Reigen marching up behind him, doesn't dare move in the futile hope that if he stays still enough he'll be invisible. Reigen breezes right past, angry defiant look etched on his face. He steps in front of Mob, and addresses Hanazawa directly: "What the hell are you doing here?"

The emotions in Mob's chest ratchets from fear to confusion at Reigen knowing exactly who Hanazawa is, despite Mob never having described the other boy. And the same can be said of Hanazawa, who has a caustic, overtly familiar smirk directed at Reigen. "Classes let out early, and I got bored."

"I see you took my advice and got a better _wig_ —"

"Arataka." Mob has surprised even himself, at the razorblade way he says Reigen's name. He's having trouble breathing properly. "You know each other?"

Reigen has gone pasty-pale, mouth fallen open in a rare loss for words. Hanazawa chuckles uncomfortably, "Ah, you didn't tell him."

Something black and furious washes across Mob. "Tell me what?"

Guilt crowds up against Reigen's eyes, and Mob feels frantic with the thought that this is all wrong, this isn't how it's supposed to be. His hair is lifting at the roots, static curling his hands into fists. Reigen says, dry and uncertain, "I met him to warn him to stay away from you, and then…"

Hanazawa, who's been paralyzed by the display of Mob's emotion and power, seems to have decided that blunt honesty might save him. He blurts out, "We've been investigating your unconscious power. And I've also helped an exorcism, or four."

Mob has the strangest sensation in his stomach, a slow nauseating roll like he's lost at sea and the roaring waves are so, so high. "Why didn't you tell me."

Reigen sucks in a breath, punched in the gut by the wrenched-free tone in Mob's voice. Hanazawa takes a step back, face carefully blank save for the occasional twitch of an eyelid.

"The last thing I wanted you to do was have to deal with this asshole," Reigen says, playing huffy and frustrated with Hanazawa, like this is a normal conversation and Mob's hair isn't standing completely on end. "So I let you rest and made him do all the work with evil spirits."

The sea inside Mob is caught in a storm now, roiling anger at Hanazawa for daring to replace him at Reigen's side, thundering fear that Reigen really _is_ replacing him as a useful esper as well as a best friend. He's trying his best to stay rational, that Reigen wouldn't even dream of doing this, his nails digging crescent moons into his palm at the tightness of his fists. But he

just

 _c a n 't_

Reigen tries to reach out a hand. "Um. Mob?

 **100% HURT**

Mob's power unfurls, cocoons around both him and Reigen in its shades of blues and purples. Reigen yowls when it pulls him closer until he's glued to Mob's side, trying to flail away and failing. Hanazawa runs but he's slammed into the ground, rocks breaking off to coil around him like a rattlesnake's tail. It's almost as if Mob is watching this scenario unfold like a bystander, removed from his own body. There is only the gnawing pit of grief and a strange want to keep Reigen from Hanazawa (he'll get hurt too) (he needs to be with me) (he's _my_ best friend) (he's _mine_ )—

"Shigeo." Reigen has calmed now, and he holds Mob by the back of his neck, faces centimeters apart. He's so steady, eye of a hurricane and Mob can't help getting lulled into its false calmness despite the wind whipping around them, Hanazawa's pitiful shrieks. "Shigeo, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I kept this from you, I know it's wrong now. I didn't want to disrupt this new routine with Body Improvement that's been good to you. But I realize it's been so demeaning to you, like I didn't trust you. From now on you're in on the loop, okay? I trust you, Mob. I always do." Reigen bumps his forehead into Mob's, not even flinching at the bolt of energy that leaps in triumph through Mob's body at the intimate touch. "Can I trust you now?"

Mob breathes, and closes his eyes, white light spilling from underneath his lids. He breathes, feels Reigen's hands on his body, and lets his barrier recede from both of them. The sidewalk rearranges itself and Hanazawa, freed, scrambles backwards, still winded and traumatized. Mob winces at the terror on the other boy's face. He shuffles up to stand over Hanazawa and offers a hand. "I'm sorry," he sighs, shaken. Hanazawa eyes Mob's hand for a long time before taking it to be pulled up.

Mob stares at the flawless concrete under them, and when he speaks it's to Reigen. "I'm glad you're researching about my power. I want it to stop, I want it gone. The next-best thing I can do until you find a way is to hide my emotions. Whenever I show them, people get hurt." He finally dares to look Reigen in the face. "I can't have that."

Reigen levels Mob with a strange, helpless look, lines carving up the ends of his lips, and not knowing what it means doesn't halt the reflective pain from spearing through Mob. He still doesn't quite know what Reigen does to him.

He turns to Hanazawa, who's wised up and kept his mouth shut now. "He's my best friend," he says, voice icy-flat. "Don't try anything."

"I won't," Hanazawa answers, odd bark of a laugh. "Trust me, the last thing I want is to get on your bad side for a third time. Twice is too much already."

Reigen snorts, and flaps out his arms, tugs them both to his sides. "Get along, my little esper children. There are more adventures to be had!" He winks at Mob, and only at Mob, a little action that soothes so much. It's enough, for now.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 9%**

In early January of the new millennium, Ritsu speaks his first word. Or so Reigen claims.

He's come to visit Mob with Mika in tow, and he sits on the couch in the living room while reading out possible evil spirit locations he's researched. Mob and his mother are mixing banana muffins in the kitchen, Mob's mother laughing at Reigen's claims of hauntings, oblivious to the fact that her son has exorcised dozens of such spirits. Mika seems transfixed by Ritsu in his baby cot, sniffing him and then wagging her tail on an endless loop, for once not going around seeking head pats or belly rubs.

Mob smiles down at the bananas he's pulping into dark yellow goo, his arms lightly dusted in flour from his mother's enthusiastic mixing beside him, Reigen's dramatic voice in his ears. Weak sunlight is filtering through the clouds, illuminating them through their window. It's a wonderful Sunday, and all is well.

"'Ka!"

Reigen startles at the little outburst, and whips his head around to stare at Ritsu, who's sat up in his cot to stare at Mika. "Ah, that's the first time I've ever heard him say anything."

"He's started babbling recently," Mob's mother says, raising her voice a little over the sound of the mixing machine. Reigen coos and crouches beside Mika to give Ritsu a serious speech: "Don't grow up too quick, little man. There's a thing called 'school' that we have to do in a few days, and it's not always fun."

Ritsu gives a toothless grin and says, clearer, "Mmm. Ka."

Mob tries not to laugh at how Reigen jumps to his feet, hand over his heart and gasping dramatically, "Is he trying to say 'Mika'?" He turns back to Ritsu. "Are you saying Mika, Ritsu-chan?"

"He might just be babbling, Arataka-kun," Mob says in an attempt to soothe the other boy's premature overexcitement.

Reigen scoffs, "Nope. I refuse to believe that. That was his first word right there, and his first word is Mika. Let that go on record." He pats Mika, whose tongue lolls out from bliss. "Good girl, Mika! Get him to say your name again!"

"Oh, Arataka-kun, here I was hoping that Ritsu's first word would be Mama!" Mob's mother giggles as she and Mob begin ladling batter into the muffin trays.

"Or Nii-san," Mob offers, a shy smile blooming unbidden at the thought.

Reigen eyes Mob, hard bright grin on his face. "Yeah, big brother Mob. Oi, pass me a muffin."

"They're not even _baked_ yet, silly!" Mob scolds him in mock offense, and Reigen's snorting laughter makes Mob feel quiet inside himself, hushed and swept free of all his fears and concerns. Everything he needs is right here.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 16%**

Mob stares at the little box in his hand. It's pink as the inside of a conch, topped with a note in Tsubomi's neat handwriting. It's no different from the chocolates he and Reigen have received over the years. Courtesy Valentine's Day chocolates. Mob is somehow both grateful that Tsubomi still remembers his existence, and crushed that this is the only prolonged annual contact he ever has with Tsubomi, and all he does is spend it stuttering his thank-you's.

Here in the Body Improvement-slash-Telepathy clubroom, Tome has unleashed a shining mountain of American chocolates onto the table, with odd names like Milky Way, Twix, and Musketeers. Captain Musashi and his fellow club mates munch on them while weightlifting, whereas Mameta and the others are multitasking Gameboy and shoving multiple pieces into each other's mouths.

Tome, who's been beaming over everything like a proud auntie, notices Mob sitting forlornly in the corner. "Mob, get over here before these brutes finish your share! And take some for Reigen too, since the asshole apparently isn't coming here himself."

Mob nods, but goes back to looking at the box. Tome scowls, stomps over to him with a fistful of chocolate and deposits it beside him. She squints at the box's note and begins reading it out loud. "'Happy Valentine's Day from Tsubomi-chan.' Hey, Takane Tsubomi? She lives in my neighborhood. Nice, if a bit too peppy." She tilts her head to smirk at Mob. " _She's_ the girl you're trying to impress?"

An incriminating blush invades Mob's face, and he tries to hide it but Tome crows in triumph, "Look, guys! Takane Tsubomi is who Mob has a crush on!"

Pretty much everyone drops what they're doing to laugh and tease Mob. Adding insult to injury, Mameta takes out a similar box and beams, "I got this from her too! I think she gives chocolate to all her elementary school classmates." Mob wants to shrink into his uniform and hide forever, but alas, even his own powers can't help with that. Everyone begins interrogating him.

"Wait, you've known her since elementary school? How long have you had a crush on her, then?" Saruta inquires.

"S…since I saw her and knew her…"

Kijibayashi gasps, "You've liked her this long but you haven't tried to confess to her at all?"

"What about White Day, when you reciprocate her chocolate?" Musashi cuts in. "You could've done that."

"I…have never given her anything…"

" _What_?" Tome squawks, loudest of all of them, a psychic power in its own right. "That's not just cowardice, that's _rudeness_! You should at least give a little back." She glares around the room. "I'll be waiting for my sweet treats come White Day, you goofs."

Sagawa groans, "You're gonna have way more chocolate because you're just one person and we're all each gonna give chocolate to you!"

The others gripe and laugh as Tome flips her hair a little. "I always think long-term, you should try that sometime. Anyway, Mob, why not give her chocolate and a confession on White Day next month?"

"I've…always been scared to. With my powers and all." Mob can now admit this out loud. He always thought he could wait until middle school to confess, but ever since the accident with Reigen he was confronted with the deathly possibility of also hurting Tsubomi like that, by sheer fault of proximity. It was a risk too big to take, especially now that he's older and far more powerful.

Tome ponders this, but plants her feet firmly and tugs at Mob by the collar. "You'll never know until you try! At least if you try, no matter what the outcome is, you'll finally know how she feels. Knowing is better than getting tortured not knowing, y'know? Just rip it off like a band-aid."

Mob considers it: getting to know if he can hold hands with Tsubomi at last, or get rejected and have supportive friends like these to rally behind him. Possible outcomes are different now. _He's_ different now. "You're right," he murmurs, and the whole room cheers.

"Of course I am," Tome preens, as the others echo their support, the boys with girlfriend experience offering tips and tricks.

Mob regales this plan to Reigen on the phone later that night. For once, it's Mob who's done most of the talking and Reigen the listening. Even after Mob's finished, Reigen stays silent. An amorphous worry carves into Mob with each second that ticks by.

"Arataka-kun?" he asks, timid, uneasy.

Static crackles as Reigen scrapes the phone receiver with the side of his face, a rushing sigh following. "You joined Body Improvement for her. Now this, is that what you're telling me? Is this really what you want?"

"I want to try. I've never even dared to think of it before but I want to try now."

Reigen is silent again, the moment stretched like taffy between them. "Okay. But don't confess to her on White Day. She's the school Madonna, every boy does that on White Day. Take initiative and get her to meet you somewhere nice and special on the day before."

"I was thinking of making her homemade chocolate, so it's really special. With Mom's help, of course."

"Ah." Reigen sounds stunned, for some reason, far away. "That's a good idea, Mob. I'm rooting for you." Before Mob can thank him, Reigen says, a little blurry, "Look, I'm a bit tired and I could be coming down with something. I'll head to bed early. See you tomorrow, okay? We still have to go spirit-hunting with Hanazawa-kun. 'Nite."

Before Mob can say goodnight, Reigen has already hung up. With an odd, sinking feeling, Mob tells the dialtone slicing his ear, "Goodnight, Arataka."

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: 33%**

March rolls around, and so does White Day. Armed with a heart-shaped box of dark chocolates with gooey marshmallow centers, and a neat little bouquet, Mob heads off to the park. It's the one right by their elementary school, where he and Reigen and Tsubomi used to play. The flowers are Hanazawa's idea, and the location Reigen's. He thought he'd be more anxious than this, but he's surprisingly calm now. He even managed to hold a decent conversation with Tsubomi on the phone some nights ago, about meeting her before school today. Everyone's support and kind words have kept him afloat, and he's ready for what's about to happen.

The early morning light leaks through the trees and over the people bustling about, daily lives unique to each individual. On the sidewalk, a terrier is straining its leash as a man laughs and gets it to heel. Mob is crossing the street when a bright orange kitten zags across the road. The oncoming car must not have seen it, and in his panic Mob drops his school bag to lift his hand, stopping the wheels with a screech. The kitten scampers to safety, and Mob breathes a sigh of relief, his power ebbing away.

A cry erupts behind him. Mob whips his head around to see a tiny kid with thick hair like Ritsu's dart across the pedestrian lane. His mother is shrieking for him to come back, it's not safe, _Hiroshi_! A car is coming full speed ahead, slamming on the brakes a split-second too late.

Mob does not think twice. He pushes the boy out of the way, and the car hurtles into his body and slams him to the ground. He can feel his own skull cracking like a soft-boiled egg, and then—

Nothing.

(After the event, eyewitnesses will say that they tried to call an ambulance for the heroic middle schooler, but then the earth beneath them splintered, and spread in waves of destruction, upsetting electric posts and vehicles and walls. At its epicenter, the boy, whose body picked itself up and secured the crushed bouquet of flowers, the spilled box of chocolates. One thing all the eyewitnesses will mention, in hushed, trembling breaths and sobs, are the shadows engulfing any trace of the boy himself, a mockery of a human shape, and those eyes, lit like lanterns, empty pure white.)

 **? ? ?**


	6. omphalos

omphalos (n.): the center or core of something

If Hanazawa doesn't shut up soon, Reigen will have to stuff his gob full of table salt.

"I got way less chocolates for Valentine's Day than I usually do," Hanazawa continues, despite the acidic looks shot his way by the few other people in the library, "which kinda disappointed me at first, but I've realized those girls still like me despite my becoming an average kid. Maybe I'll actually give back some courtesy chocolates, and a bouquet or two to the cute ones." He pauses, at long last, to regard Reigen with a fishhook smirk. "Did you get anything? You gonna return someone's _feelings_?"

He tries to elbow Reigen in jest, but Reigen whacks him with his notebook, growling, "Please shut up," though it's ruined by his stuffy nose. Reigen's eyes are still watery from staying in the microform section so long, dust motes dancing in the afternoon light. Hanazawa will probably make fun of him for it, but the other boy simply readjusts his sprawl against the long table, and waits. Reigen hums in approval, turning back to his notes on the string of odd disappearances in the past decade.

"Hey, Rei-chan."

So much for peace and quiet. "What?"

"Kageyama-kun's gonna go get his girl on White Day." Hanazawa's bright eyes are on him with that probing thoughtfulness again. "I'd be proud of my BFF if it were me, but I don't see you all excited."

Reigen's been doing his best to put that out of his mind, for reasons he himself doesn't understand yet. "I don't always say what I feel. Especially to you."

With a chuffing laugh, Hanazawa tips his chair back. "Yes, you do. It shows on your face, at least. And I don't see any of that excitement you claim to have."

For once, when it comes to navigating Hanazawa, Reigen does not lie. "Well, I'm proud. I've always known he could do anything once he got enough confidence. And here he is, taking chances." He stares down at his hands, smudged with pencil lead.

"But you're not happy about it. I wonder why."

Reigen does not say, _he's taking chances without needing my help_. "I wish you were as dense as you were pretty," he grouches instead.

Hanazawa brays a high ecstatic laugh that garners a harsh shh!-ing noise from someone nearby. "You think I'm pretty?"

"I don't 'think' anything. It's what everyone thinks of you. I just think you're useful to me."

"Aww, and that's all? We're not even friends?"

"Didn't peg you as the type of person who'd want friends," Reigen says, skeptical, turning back to his notebook. "At least not with me, and certainly not Mob."

"You two are a package deal, huh." Hanazawa sounds odd, a little peeved; at what, Reigen doesn't know. "You even gonna go with him to that girl?"

The mere thought of doing that has Reigen burning from mortification, and he splutters, "No. For once he's getting more confident doing things without me. And that's good."

"That must go the same for you, then, you realize."

"Yeah. Now I'm stuck with your bald ass, what an honor."

Hanazawa utters an undignified squawk and lunges for Reigen, but the librarian, whose own patience has run dry, orders them out. Reigen, however, doesn't even have the heart to find it funny.

Every day since the pretend-esper scheme has been a diabolical funhouse for Reigen, traps and spooks and disfiguring mirrors, horrendous ideas of holding Mob's hand, touching his face, mouths centimeters apart. He's tried to ignore it, thinking it a fluke, except now it's mutated into something worse.

It's a fog that has taken over, rolled down from the hills to ground Reigen's airplanes and sink his ships, a huge smothering thing.

In all the other areas of his life, Reigen is rational and practical and honestly pretty bright, pretty much on top of things.

Mob shows up and it all goes to hell.

The two of them are each other's blind spot, wreaking havoc upon the other without noticing, not until the damage is done. Mob seems to have resigned himself to this magnetic pull, accepted it for what it is, not expecting anything of Reigen. But Reigen doesn't know, doesn't want to define this odd ache inside. Perhaps it'll go away after Mob woos Tsubomi as he's always deserved.

Mob has always deserved better.

* * *

"I'm off!" Reigen hollers, snatching his sandwich off the table to eat on the way to school. He's doing his best to pretend that this is another day, that Mob isn't marching towards a shot at Tsubomi with his head high and no need of Reigen besides advice and empty platitudes. A small, gnarled part of him keeps insisting that Mob will just get rejected anyway and he'll come back to needing Reigen, and things will be as they should be. Reigen has done his best to cut this nastiness at the root, but it keeps sprouting over and over in tangled weeds.

He sighs, and hop-skips into his sneakers without bother to redo the laces. His mother peers into the hallway from the living room, but instead of scolding him for his laziness as she always does, she says, "Arataka. Come see this."

"I'm already late—"

"Taka." His mother's tone leaves no room for reproach. But it's not just sternness there, it's. Fear.

Reigen hurries after her with his shoes still on and sees the report on TV. Fences and facilities are tearing themselves apart, the ground rolling away like ocean tides. A baffled news anchor is trying to make heads or tails of the possible causes for the catastrophe: an earthquake of vicious tremors, or a boy, walking towards the downtown area, wearing a middle school uniform.

Without realizing it, Reigen has slumped, his spine rolling against the doorframe, and he can feel his heartbeat raging in his temples, the place where his wrist is pinned by his side. He quells the adrenaline-fueled urge to throw up and says, "I'm going."

His mother turns from the screen, her eyes reaching for his, imploring, "Taka, is it him?"

"We always feared he was the one who hurt you years ago, and now this!" His father gesticulates hard enough that the TV remote nearly flies out of his hand.

Reigen bares his teeth and spews a lie so perfect even he starts to believe it: " _No_. He's my best friend. He's never hurt me and he never will. Don't you try to stop me."

He rushes out the door, school bag and sandwich forgotten, to find Teru running up the sidewalk. He spots the other boy and yells, "Rei-chan! We need to go!"

Under normal circumstances, Reigen would berate Teru for even knowing where he lives, calling him a stalker, but now is not the time. He's barely even opened his mouth when Teru slaps a hand to the nape of his neck and _runs_.

Reigen and his family once took a bullet train to get to the airport for a holiday, and whenever he'd look outside the window, the world was abstracted, all hurried lines of paint going into the opposite direction.

Teru using his powers on him is just like that, combined with the sensation of his body being shoved through space to make them move faster than humanly possible.

At some point, Reigen has closed his eyes so he doesn't pass out, and only opens them again once he's in control of his own footing again. They're standing between trees, skeletal-bare from the gale that violently stripped them of their leaves.

"Kageyama-kun is coming right towards us," Teru declares, grave, not at all affected by the damn travel. Reigen leans on his knees and wheezes, trying to listen. "Behind this forest is the shopping district and housing complex across the train station. Lots of people are in danger." Teru turns to Reigen. "What do we do?"

Once again, it seems like Reigen's the one who needs to come up with a plan. The physical ache in his chest grows worse as he scans the tree line, both hoping and dreading a glimpse of Mob. Every atom in his being wants to run towards his best friend, but he can't.

"We need to get everyone out of here now, right now."

They hurl into the street and are met with puzzled people on their radios or pagers listening to broadcasts, asking each other what's going on. Reigen's about to yell at them to evacuate, but then. The woods split open and Mob emerges. The earth fractures with each slow, purposeful step he takes, and his dead eyes—

His eyes—

Reigen forces himself away. The air is brimming with dust and debris. There are ashen faces plastered to the windows in buildings, some stricken with fear, others in a rictus of perpetual screams. Pedestrians are stumbling over themselves, calling out for loved ones. Reigen grabs Teru. "Use your weird teleportation bullshit or something, it's really needed now!"

Teru shakes his head, bloodless with dread himself. "There must be more than a hundred people in the area, and that's just on the ground. I – I'm not sure if I can reach them all in time!"

There's a groan of metal, and the sign to a restaurant plummets towards a hapless little girl, her parents shrieking as they try to grab her. Reigen lunges and Teru tries to outstretch his powers, but they're too late, they'll both be too late, Mob will have accidentally caused someone's death and he'll never ever forgive himself and neither will Reigen—

The girl is enveloped in rippling light, and the sign clangs onto the invisible barrier mere centimeters from her head. She's yanked away and suspended in the air, away from all the danger. "Ah, you saved her!" Reigen tells Teru, relieved beyond words.

Teru sputters, "That wasn't me."

"You there."

They both turn towards the sudden voice. A sharp man in a suit has his hands outstretched, sunset-orange energy cascading from his hands. He jerks his head at Teru, unusual eyebrows bunched in concentration. "We can do this to all of them."

 _he's an esper_ , Reigen realizes, as Teru gasps and gives a quick bow. "T-Thank you, sir!"

Within seconds, nearly every soul downtown is sealed into the stasis of an orb of energy. The man nods and begins walking away from them. "Wait, please!" Reigen yells. "You're very powerful, you could help us stop him!"

"I've already wasted enough time," the man says, cold as the kiss of a knife. "I need to get my wife and child away from here."

"But please –!"

The man shimmers like a heat wave and disappears, no trace of his existence left. Reigen screams, "you fucking _asshole_ ," but then the earth cracks open and reminds him that Mob is still out here, his body and his powers being used by some wicked eldritch horror. Mob's back is turned as he marches towards the park, several blocks ahead.

"He's still walking towards Tsubomi," Reigen rasps. "He's still in there. Maybe we won't have to do anything drastic."

Teru gulps, and tries to meet Reigen's eyes when he asks, "What if we can't stop him no matter what we do?"

"We have no choice." Reigen can't even risk imagining worst-case scenarios or he'll break down completely. His composure is held together by nothing but raggedy threads of hope.

" _Reigen-kun_!"

Stampeding down the street is a shocking, glorious sight. The Body Improvement Club, the Telepathy Club, and, of all people, Onigawara and his gang.

"We had a bad feeling that it was Kageyama-kun we were hearing about on the news, so we came as soon as we could," Sagawa says, as the rest of Body Improvement skids to a halt around Reigen and Teru.

"We're here to help," Tome wheezes, as she and her friends try to get their breath back.

Onigawara smacks a fist into his hand, scythe of a grin from ear to ear. "Maybe we can stop him together!" he crows.

Reigen recovers from the surprise and shakes his head. "It's too dangerous, please go!"

"No way!" Tome has recovered, all spitting fire again. "Mob-kun's our friend, we won't leave him."

Goda lays a steadying hand on his shoulder. "And you're our friend too, y'know."

Reigen, at a rare loss for words, can only nod, and it's Teru who speaks for him. "We need to find a way to calm him down. Perhaps if we surround him and restrain him as one, we can prevent more damage from being done."

There's a fighting chance now. Together. Courage builds like chalk dust in the back of Reigen's throat, and he cries out, "Thank you, everyone! We can do this!"

They split into three groups and bolt as fast as they can down the block. Teru launches at Mob head-on, painting a yellow comet above them as he tries to land.

And then Reigen sees Mob turn around and lifts his hand, and the ground

the air

his head

the _world_

splits open, and then there is nothing left.

* * *

When Reigen comes to, the vision in his left eye is blurry. For one empty, bottomless moment he thinks he's gone blind, but then he touches it and realizes it's just wet with blood from a cut on his temple.

The wind is bellowing like a wounded beast, chunks of buildings swirling inside it. Growing frantic, Reigen braces against the gusts and struggles to his feet. Nearly all their friends are unconscious, rag dolls splayed around a playpen. He checks on every one of them, letting out a sob of relief once he knows that everyone is still breathing, still alive. Mob would never forgive himself if—

A giant boulder of gravel road goes sailing over his head, and he looks up to see the eye of the storm. Teru is still standing, moving one foot at a time even though his clothes are in tatters, though his energy barrier is shuddering. He tears up another piece of road and hurls it at Mob. Mob's face hardly even changes as he makes it disintegrate, his unblinking searchlight eyes devoid of humanity, of anything.

Teru is shouting, words garbled by the blood streaming from his nose, his mouth. "I've come to respect you, Kageyama-kun. You showed me a different way to be. And I know you're not like this. I know you want to stop!"

He's only a few feet away from Mob now, and he offers his hand. Before Reigen can even open his mouth to cry out, Teru is wrenched up and shot like a bullet into one of the collapsed buildings somewhere behind Reigen. Mob turns and continues walking, and Reigen can see clearly now that under one arm he is still holding the box of chocolates, and the bouquet.

In the very back of Reigen's head, a weak, whispered voice on the verge of weeping cries out softly, and Reigen opens his mouth to let it out in a scream.

"Mob! Shigeo! _Shigeo_!" Miracle of miracles, Mob stops. Reigen sprints over the jagged street, trying not to trip over the city's innards, and keeps talking to the creature inside his best friend. "Please, whatever you are, why are you doing this? I know you've listened to me before, long ago. Listen now. This is an important day for him. Please leave him alone. Leave and stop all this!"

For a few seconds, Mob does not stir. Reigen has covered enough distance to get closer to him, and then.

"Reigen…" It sends damp fingers sliding down Reigen's backbone, makes him stumble, to hear Mob's voice with such calm, amused confidence. "You said you were my friend."

Reigen swallows his fear, tries to humor the being. "Yes, I'm you friend, and I'm asking you to leave Shigeo alone."

Mob's body turns back around to stare at him with unseeing eyes, and says, "I _am_ him. I am Kageyama Shigeo."

A knot of fear chokes around Reigen's chest, rage following suit. "No, you're not," he spits. "I've known you nearly all our lives and this isn't you. Mob doesn't even want this power because he's afraid of hurting people. And that's what you're doing right now."

"Ah. _Mob_." The word is rolled around like a bad taste on the tongue. "The other me."

Reigen wants to collapse. He forces the sick hard pain from his chest way down deep in his stomach, and he whispers, "O-other…?"

"The me who wants to please everyone at the expense of his own potential," 'Shigeo' explains, like he's speaking to a child. "The me who held back our powers. But I'm free now. I can do anything. I can take over for him." He nods once. "You helped me. You told me my name. You gave me a sense of self. So thank you."

Reigen is only barely holding back his horror with both hands, in a white-knuckled grip. "No…no! _Stop_! There's a time and place for displaying this kind of power, but this? This isn't that time! Think of our friends. Think of Tsubomi-chan!"

"I _am_ thinking of Tsubomi." Reigen feels like he's having a stroke, watching 'Shigeo' with a face blank as a canvas, while such passion and enthusiasm fill his foreboding words. "I would like to meet her. From what Mob thinks of her, maybe she can be my friend too."

"S-she won't like you this way!" Reigen stutters, as the ground lurches and more cracks wrap around their town. "You at least need to stop all this, keep your power down for now!"

'Shigeo' tilts his head, a predator regarding its very trapped prey. "I think she'll like me. Because you like me too, don't you, Reigen-kun?" he gloats.

No good can come out of Reigen humoring this creature far more than he already has. He tries to get another step closer but finds that he cannot move at all. 'Shigeo's' eyes narrow the slightest bit, now focused on him. He says, dripping venom, "Or are you just using us for our powers?"

Reigen asks, stupidly, "What?"

"Ah." 'Shigeo' extends his arm, and Reigen is lifted clear off the ground. He caterwauls and tries to kick free, to no effect. "I thought you were different," 'Shigeo' continues, "but you're not my friend at all." In the first display of emotion he's ever done, a small, terrifyingly serene smile spreads across his face. "I'll make Tsubomi my new friend."

Reigen feels himself get thrown like a tennis ball. His body connects to the earth with that particular fleshy whack. The shock protects him for a second before the white-hot pain burns through his very cells and atoms. He can't even yell before he's tossed up again and sent flying into what's left of some building's wall, and he nearly blacks out. He's blinded by agony, a vague secondhand terror overtaking everything else.

 _i'm going to die_ , Reigen thinks. It's a fleeting statement of truth, almost amazingly simple. Half a minute is all he has left in his lungs before he'll be smashed to a pulp by his own best friend.

He doesn't even know what's happening, or how much time passes, when 'Shigeo' unpeels his body from the concrete to drift before him. "You're crying." His voice is flat, annoyed. Reigen blinks and realizes that tears are indeed streaming down his cheeks, mixing with his blood. 'Shigeo' asks, perplexed, "Why?"

Something uncorks with an almost audible sound inside Reigen, and he starts openly weeping, no matter how much it's tearing him apart. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Shigeo." He thinks about his gentle, beautiful best friend; his smile, his rare laughs, his hands while holding little Ritsu. "I should have known. I should have known what was wrong. I should have pressured you into talking to me, and maybe this wouldn't have happened." Behind his eyes, Mob is embracing him, soothing him after his parents have another bad fight. "I'm so sorry."

"It was never your duty," 'Shigeo' scoffs. "You treated us differently, just like everyone else has. You only befriended us because we're an esper."

"I befriended you because you saved my dog," Reigen corrects him, blood bubbling out of his mouth, but it's okay, he sees it so clearly, Mob at six years old and that timid joy as he reunites Mika with her owner. "Because you're helpful, and kind, and…because I needed a friend too. And you _are_ my friend, Shige. You're my best friend in the entire world, and I still need you." He opens his eyes at last, and finds the one wearing Mob's face staring back. "Don't…don't you need me too?"

The face contorts, and the pressure constricting Reigen lifts. He's lowered back to the ground, and he wonders if he can at least have a nice view of the blue glass sky before he—

" _Taka_ ," Mob cries, and it _is_ Mob, that's Mob right there, regaining himself. Reigen bursts into tears anew again, and he whimpers, "shige shige shige," a record broken in so many places.

Mob thuds to his knees and scoops Reigen up, Madonna and her crucified Christ. His eyes, oh how Reigen has missed Mob's eyes, their special kind of dark, right now overflowing with tears that fall upwards instead of down. His aura of angry obsidian soothes into the blue Reigen knows like breathing. He gasps as the blue surrounds him, and his flesh knits together, joints and bones pop back into place. Mob shushes his pained moans, muttering soothing nonsense over and over, "I know, I'm so sorry, just a little longer." He touches his forehead to Reigen's, and Reigen absorbs that as well as the energy pouring into him.

As soon as he feels that he has the strength, Reigen winds his arms around Mob, and Mob embraces back. The ground quails, and over Mob's shoulder Reigen can see their city righting itself. Chasms recede, buildings get to their feet. Even the trees and the greenery are sprouting and blooming again. Reigen is in awe of such casual power. But he knows that its wielder is still his soft best friend. "Oh, Mob," he rasps, "are you okay?"

Mob nods, his hair wafting like a cloud, and he pulls back to give Reigen a trembling smile. "There's just some things we… Shigeo and I… need to sort out."

Reigen's throat clams up violently. "Ah. He's still. In there?"

Mob's smile widens, and he chuckles in a rueful, self-depreciating way, "I think he'll always be there." He squeezes Reigen's arm and stands up. The bouquet and the box float into his hands, the flowers doubling in size and vibrancy, the chocolates reforming inside the now-pristine box. "I can sense Tsubomi-chan. She stayed. She's waiting."

At a loss for words, Reigen nods, and watches Mob walk to the park. Or rather, hover. His feet are gliding with ease above the ground.

Confused yells snag his attention, and Reigen looks back to see their friends regaining consciousness, alright but a little worse for wear, just like him. Teru, for some reason, is laughing with his arms thrown up, an Icarus who has reached the sun.

"Oi. What the fuck just happened?" Onigawara hollers out, as well as a bunch of other more colorful words when the fissure underneath him sews itself back into a sidewalk.

"Wow," Tome says, uncharacteristically somber, staring awestruck at everything happening around them, a city surgically rebirthed by Mob's powers. "He really _is_ the real deal."

"Yeah," Reigen says, just as awestruck himself. A tsunami of exhaustion hits him, and he feels himself slump back to the ground, wanting to sit and rest. Bit by bit the rest of their friends come to surround him, and together they stay.

* * *

Not long after, Mob emerges from the park. He's walking properly now, the blue glow vanished, but his hair's still floating. Everyone gets up, and Reigen is reminded of a strange TV drama moment, of visitors in a hospital waiting room. They look keenly to Mob, and Reigen lets himself speak for all of them: "What happened?"

Mob smiles his usual placid smile, but tears pool in his eyes and escape in puddles traveling up into the air. "I got rejected," he tells them, strained and congested with sobs.

"Eh? Wow, she really waited to meet you you. At least she respected you enough for that!" Goda exclaims, trying to make the best of a bad situation.

The others chime in with condolences and fixer-uppers of their own, but once again, Reigen doesn't know what to say. He can blame it on the mild concussion he might still have (or rather, the way Mob looks _gorgeous_ , ethereal, in a way that make his silver tongue rust and fall out of his mouth).

"You. Your hair's still up," he offers lamely.

Mob's eyes widen, and he swipes at the remaining tears. "It is?" he asks, sounding a little embarrassed. On instinct, Reigen steps close and musses his hand through Mob's hair. It twines around his fingers, moves over his skin. He cups the base of Mob's skull and pulls him closer for another hug that Mob readily accepts.

"Let's go home," he says, gentle and soothing into Mob's ear. Mob nods, and Reigen hears Teru stretch with a drawn-out groan and complain, "Before we go and collapse in a coma, can we order burgers? I am _starving_."

Everyone laughs and starts compiling their orders to saddle whichever poor fastfood cashier they'll end up with. But through it all, Reigen stays glued to Mob, and Mob stays glued to him.


	7. palimpsest

palimpsest (n.): a manuscript or tale that is written over an earlier version.

 _arataka arataka taka taka **taka** nonononono that's my best friend my family half my life **STOP**_

'Hm. You did it. Hello, Mob.'

 _you. you're..._

'I'm you. Or rather, you're me.'

 _you listened to me. you stopped hurting taka. thank you._

'This person matters so much to you.'

 _yes. but this city matters too, it's our home. let me fix it._

'Hm. You said 'our'.'

 _yes, i did. if i'm you, that means this city is important to you. the people in it._

'And Arataka. And Tsubomi?'

 _she could be, if we go to her calmly, together._

'...You accept me so easily.'

 _i've realized that i've had this part of me that i never even realized. arataka and my friends accepted me all the same, so why can't i accept you?_

'Arataka doesn't seem to accept me .'

 _maybe because you slammed our friends and him around everywhere._

'Ah. Heh. Hehe.'

 _that wasn't really a joke._

'But you don't mind me laughing.'

 _no, i don't._

'I. I think I'm feeling... I think I'm nervous. I could be rejected.'

 _i have that fear too. but we'll never know until we try. we can do this, shigeo. we'll be okay._

* * *

The first week after, Mob's hair refuses to stop floating.

Aside from that and the usual bending of cutlery into knots, there are so many other —it's difficult for Mob to pick the right word— _hiccups_ in this adjustment period. He wakes some mornings to find himself and his things drifting through his bedroom. Drinking glasses and light bulbs shatter without being touched. His hands constantly feel like they've just held a spark plug, electric traces like the taste of a penny in his mouth.

His poor parents are bewildered, but so kind. They've let him take a little leave of absence from school, to watch spy movies and look after Ritsu and experiment with baking. Mob is both so lucky, and so guilt-ridden.

Tome and their other friends visit him when they can. They've commented that even though they're not espers, they can still see hints of his blue aura, the way Teru can, bathing him in a constant spotlight. Cats and dogs on the street arch their backs to stare at him, as though they can sense it too. Even Mika hesitates to come near Mob when he visits Reigen's house, whining and growling in confusion, and it _stings_.

"Maybe your ESP battery got put on high from what happened. It just has to drain out and you'll go back to normal," Reigen theorizes. He's rubbing at his temple without realizing it. Mob knows of the wound he'd inflicted there, and the new ones joining the old hidden under Reigen's clothes. Mob would rather lie down in oncoming traffic than ever hurt Reigen or anyone again. Especially Reigen. All that raised scar tissue, trails and breadcrumbs pointing to the monster that Mob could turn into.

Mob tries to quell his shudder. He's nothing but nerves, a live wire with the sheathing stripped off. Looking back now, he knows that his emotions, previously muffled by the floorboards he trapped them under, have burst free. He wants to repress them again, except he risks causing other incidents where he loses control of his powers, and himself.

"I feel like I'm stuck," he croaks, out loud. At the corner of his vision, he sees Reigen jerk up; this is the first time Mob's talked in the full hour they've been sitting in Reigen's room catching up on the lessons and homework Mob missed out on. Mob sighs and curls up on the floor beside Mika, staring at her because it's easier than seeing Reigen right now. "I don't know what to do." He releases a shuddering breath, and tears leak out of him without warning. "I'm sorry I'm like this, Arataka."

He tries to compose himself, rubbing the sleeve of his hoodie over his nose. He hears Reigen get to his feet and thud gently beside him. Mob opens his eyes to see Reigen laying down, facing him. With his back to the window, the dusk light streams in, glinting off Reigen's hair, a slice of his cheek. There's a lingering sadness on his face that only adds to Mob's irrational guilt.

"You have to go through this. Not over it, or around it, but through," he says, quieter than Mob has ever remembered him speaking. Not just in volume, but in stillness. Sorrow. "Don't avoid what you feel. Understand it so it's easier to let go. I learned that the hard way, with my parents fighting all the time." He lets out an aborted laugh. "That might be a bad comparison to your situation. I can't even begin to guess what it feels like, but… I'm here for you, okay?" He pauses, then tacks on a hasty "W-we all are," like he realizes how intimate it sounds.

Mob doesn't mind the intimate. He's grateful for it, even though he knows he doesn't deserve it, not after all he's done. But he lets himself have this, just for a little bit. He reaches out and clasps Reigen's wrist, almost his hand, in the first initiation of physical contact he's done since the incident.

Reigen lets him.

* * *

Impossibly, miraculously, things get better.

Aside from both his hair and his powers calming down and actually obeying him, Mob's emotions stabilize too, and he gets better at expressing them. He still remembers the first time he openly chuckled at one of his dad's terrible jokes, and both his parents beaming with relief and joy afterwards. He dreams, or at least remembers his dreams upon waking, something that's never happened before: a technicolor world of fantastical beasts and adventures and heroes. What's even more delightful is that his days are somehow more fulfilling than those dreams.

He's vowed to become a better friend to everyone who's ever helped him, and discovers it's not as bad as he feared it would be. He lets Tome rant and sob about nearly graduating but not yet finding aliens with the rest of her club. Teru takes him clothes shopping (though he politely declines the rather lurid camouflage and tie-dye combo shirt the other boy suggested would look good). Onigawara, having officially joined Body Improvement at long last, challenges Mob to a race, and Mob only loses to him by a few seconds.

Reigen's taken a break from spirit hunting, content to spend late afternoons food kiosk-hopping and grooming Mika, or even taping reruns of 'Junk Food Fighter Michael' and bringing them over for him and Mob to watch. They sit on Mob's couch and munch on Mob's latest pastry experiments.

Sometimes Reigen pulls a leg up, folding it under himself and Mob will suddenly be terribly cognizant of Reigen's knee against his own thigh, a circle of heat, almost wanting to shift away because it makes him feel strange, but he's never felt strange before.

Or when Mob's sipping a Coke float, for example, lips pursed around the straw, he catches Reigen staring like he's transfixed, unable to look away, until Mob asks if maybe he wants to have some too and he startles out of it.

Things are odd, but not in a bad way. They're all adjusting, finding equilibrium, and Mob wonders if this is what self-actualization is like.

And then, two weeks after what happened, he opens the door for whoever is knocking at the clubroom and finds Takane Tsubomi.

"Mob-kun…?"

She looks so…different, and Mob realizes it's because she's not made up. No powder on her cheeks, or clips in her hair. Her lip balm-less mouth is in a wavering line rather than the sweet smile she always has. Tsubomi flinches and glares at him with accusatory eyes, lined and raw like she's been staying up late, like she's been crying.

"May we talk?" she asks Mob. Her eyes dart to Reigen, who's half-risen from his seat at the Telepathy Club's table. "In private."

Reigen bristles. "You rejected him and now you want to be alone with him? Nope, I don't think so." Tome and the others nod, murmuring agreements, so quick to defend Mob.

Mob marvels, more at how rude and protective Reigen sounds, rather than at the content of what he's saying. The ache in his chest arrives late, an afterthought, and Mob feels an odd sense of guilt that he's not as broken up about Tsubomi as he thought he'd still be, seeing and talking with her right now. Perhaps he's still too surprised.

Tsubomi's gaze flickers between him and Reigen strangely. She sighs. "I might as well come out with it." She gently closes the door behind her, and addresses the room: "I think I can read minds."

She doesn't let the outburst of confused noises deter her. "A few days after you…" She hesitates for a moment, eyes alighting heavily on Mob. "After that, I started hearing voices. Seeing things. Thinking thoughts not my own. I thought I was going insane until I realized what was happening. And it's been getting worse. I'm sensing more and more each day." Her words tremble, dangling off a precipice, unsure if they'll be caught when they fall. "I think this is your fault. And I want you to take it back."

"You're saying you're a telepath?" Kijibayashi scoffs, crossing his arms.

Tsubomi fixes him with a piercing, focused stare over Mob's shoulder. "Aside from being skeptical about me, you're thinking about entrance exam results and what high school you'll end up going to. And finding your younger sister's stash of ero manga, which still mortifies you, though you've stolen some for yourself."

As Kijibayashi splutters, she turns to Mameta. "You're thinking about the new gaming console that's coming up later this year. WonderSwan Color, with a ROM cartridge, 512 kbit RAM, and 20 hours battery life. You want it so much you're debating starving yourself just to save up from your allowance." Mameta has to pick his jaw up from the floor.

"Saruta doesn't think anything except that I got hit by a tennis ball and went crazy," Tsubomi continues, facing the last skeptic, "then spied on all of you so I know these things. He's trying to think stuff that I won't know." Her eyes narrow as she starts intoning, "Red elephant green books black shirt six doves—"

"Okay, stop that!" Saruta howls, ashen, slapping his hands over his ears as he visibly quakes.

Tsubomi slumps into the nearest chair, and sighs, "I don't know why Tome-san" —she gestures towards the older girl, whose face is scrunched up in an inscrutable expression— "won't stop yelling in her head."

Nobody says anything for several long seconds. Mob doesn't need to be a telepath to know that they all must be thinking the same thing: Takane Tsubomi, the lovely, mild-mannered girl who got along with everyone better than a foreign diplomat would, is being so blunt and direct. She must be extremely stressed, and frightened, and very much telling the truth.

Mob stays dumbfounded, and a little overwhelmed, until he finds his voice. "Tsubomi-chan. Are you saying…that I caused this?"

She looks up at him, weary, then her head snaps to Reigen. "You're making a theory." Reigen goes bug-eyed, but Tsubomi keeps talking. "You're thinking that in the state that Mob-kun was in when he went to confess to me, maybe some of his esper-abilities flowed into me…?"

"Can that even happen?" Saruta wonders aloud, still a little pale; not that Mob can blame him.

Mameta shrugs. "I don't know… you remember what happened, when Mob-kun started fixing the city. Even the plant life started growing back."

Tsubomi cradles her head in her hands. "I don't need to know how or why it happened. All I want is for this to stop." She turns expectantly towards Mob again.

Mob has been sinking inch by inch into the tar pit of shame and guilt that he thought he'd already climbed out of. It's bad enough that he's hurt his friends and the entire city, but to cause Tsubomi so much anxiety and not even know how to take it back is somehow worse than her rejecting him.

"I. I don't know. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Mob gives her a bow, a helpless, empty gesture. "I didn't mean to do this to you, Tsubomi-chan."

She smiles, tiny and frightened, but better than the barbed-wire twist her mouth was in before. "Thank you, Mob-kun. At least you actually say out loud what you think and intend. Unlike so many others."

Kijibayashi stays silent, Mameta shuffles his feet, and Saruta keeps gaping at Tsubomi like a drowned fish.

"Argh, literally no one is going to say it?" Tome bleats into the awkward silence. Mob and the others blink at her, a little slow. "Our name is – _was_ – the Telepathy Club. And right here in front of us we have a telepath! This is our last chance at completing our mission statement!" She pumps her fists in the air, and screeches to the ceiling: "I am one step closer to finding aliens!"

Tsubomi gives a little gasp. "You. You don't think I'm crazy. Or scary. You're really okay with this? With me?"

Tome grabs her hands and gives them a little shake, wearing a manic grin from ear to ear. "I'm more than okay with this! You're glorious, you're beautiful! I've been looking for someone like you for forever!"

For some unusual reason, Tsubomi is turning red. "Oh my. Um." Her brow furrows. "Wait, I only now caught on to— Aliens? 'E.T. phone home?'"

"Exactly," Tome beams. "My dear kouhai, you could make my lifelong dream come true."

Tsubomi flushes again, and Mob wants to ask her if she has a fever, but is interrupted by the sight of Reigen pacing the room, hatching another plan, no doubt. "We could be hitting two birds with one stone," he muses. "Mob, when you use your powers a lot, it drains your esper energy, right? Tsubomi-chan, perhaps if you direct your powers into doing this task, which I'm sure will cost a lot of energy, maybe it'll deplete completely."

Tsubomi smiles again. "I'm desperate for anything. It's worth a shot. But…I don't know how to use this power. It frightens me."

Mob lifts his hand a little, and drops it back again once he realizes it looks like he's raising his hand for recitation in a classroom. He manages to speak over his embarrassment. "Ah, I could guide you, Tsubomi-chan. Help you redirect the energy through proper channels. It's the least I can do."

Reigen's lower eyelid twitches, but he shakes it off before Mob can pinpoint why he's pissed. "Right. Tome-san, aside from playing games and eating snacks, have you guys done any actual research on telepathy and aliens?"

"Of course!" Tome huffs. "We just got…sidetracked, because it was so difficult wondering how on earth we'd even find a telepath."

Reigen splays his hands out on the table and leans over his captive audience with a winning smirk. "Well, what does your research say?"

* * *

The plan that was formed is as follows: on the weekend, the group will be chauffeured by Tome's older sister in their family station wagon. They'll go to the neighboring prefecture's Mud Boat Mountain, site of many U.F.O. sightings. At its peak, they'll use Tsubomi's telepathy and Mob's amplification of her power. Hopefully, that will be enough to summon extraterrestrials.

Kurata Chisato turns out to be the influence behind Tome's alien obsession, and the sisters spend most of the drive chattering about the kind of aliens they could end up seeing. The boys are dozing off in the backseat, while in the middle row, Mob is sat between Reigen and Tsubomi.

Needless to say, it's awkward as hell for him.

A stormcloud seems to have perched itself on Reigen and never left. He goes along with what people say and generates light banter, but not once do his smiles reach his eyes. Mob wants to talk with him about it, but at the same time he doesn't want to leave out Tsubomi. And he can't even begin to think of what he could say to her.

 _oh dear, i'm beginning to doubt if i should have agreed to this._

Mob jolts in his seat, sharp enough that his seatbelt bites into his flesh. He was glancing right at Tsubomi, and heard her voice speak, but not once did her mouth move.

Reigen touches his arm. "Mob, are you alright?"

"Ah, I just remembered that I forgot to tell my parents how long I'd be out," Mob says, hoping that Reigen can accept his lie despite his shoddy, limpid grin.

Reigen's brow creases, and he leans in, talking in a lower, softer voice only Mob can hear, "Tell me if you feel anything, okay? I know you get carsick on long drives. I brought some camellia oil so you don't throw up in my hoodie again."

Mob grins, abashed. He'd hoped that Reigen had forgotten the incident that happened when they were nine years old, but at the same time, he's touched and reassured. He closes the distance between them by nudging his head into Reigen's. "Thank you."

Satisfied, Reigen settles down again, and leans his head against the windowpane with his eyes shut, perhaps following their friends' lead and taking a nap.

 _mob-kun?_

There it is again, Tsubomi's strange voice-not-voice. Mob turns his head to look straight at Tsubomi this time, and tries not to jump as badly when she says, mouth still not moving, _mob-kun, i'm sorry if i startled you. i didn't mean to do that. i've only started doing this recently. i can speak to you using our minds._

"It's okay," Mob says out loud, and winces when Tome twists in her seat to look back at him strangely, conjecting into a nonexistent conversation. _it's okay_ , he tries again, thinking in precise, careful words. _this is amazing. do you think you're more in control of your powers now?_

Tsubomi motions for them both to look at the floor so they don't seem so odd, stuck staring at each other. Once that's done, she continues. _yes, since we last spoke, i somehow got better. i'm learning to treat the voices as background noise, no different from if i hear a lot of things in real life. but if i do try and use it, i can receive the thoughts from people a good five kilometers away. it's… honestly? exciting._

 _you feel differently about it now too. i was the same way. i used to be scared of my own powers until i learned to use and control them. now they're just part of me._

 _well, i don't know about mine. if they go away, it'll be a relief. but if they don't… i'm not seeing it as such a bad thing anymore._

 _that's good, tsubomi-chan. but. earlier, you were thinking that you doubted agreeing to this mission. why?_

 _it's because… arataka-kun doesn't like me as much, and things might still be weird for you, mob-kun._

The memories are triggered unwittingly, and Tsubomi can see them the way Mob can: Mob entering the park and finding Tsubomi still waiting; extending the chocolates and the bouquet and his affections; Tsubomi bowing to him as she apologized and turned him down, not the least bit afraid even though he was glowing like a neon sign and floating a few feet off the ground.

Tsubomi says nothing, intentionally keeping her mind clear for a long while. _many boys have confessed to me, not just you_ , she utters at last. _but you were the nicest one i had to turn down, and an old friend too. i'm sorry. i just can't force myself to like someone just because they like me too. and… ah. i'm afraid i look at girls more than i look at boys._

Mob's eyebrows hike up his forehead in surprise. _you like girls? like... crushes?_

 _yes. there's the occasional boy, too, but it's been mostly girls. i've tried to hide it for a while, but i think you're the one who deserves this truth._ Tsubomi shrinks against the car door, turning her face away from him, but there's no masking the misery in her thoughts. _i'm sorry. i must be disgusting._

 _no, don't be_ , Mob rushes to say. _i… i think i understand. and i don't think it's wrong._

Slowly, Tsubomi looks back at him, and beams, candlelight-warm and happy. _thank you. i knew i could trust you with this. i see how you think of arataka-kun, and how he thinks of you. you're very good for each other._

Mob's brain sprints triple-time, skyrocketing through possibilities. Heat rises up his neck once he realizes what Tsubomi is implying. " _Eh?_ " he sputters out loud, and tries to cover it up by faking a little coughing fit. _i don't know for sure if i think of arataka-kun that way_ , he says to Tsubomi, trying to plead his case. _and i'm certain he doesn't think of me that way at all. he's never thought of anybody that way._

 _that's true, actually. but he just lights up all over when it comes to you._

 _probably because we've been best friends since we were six._

 _probably_ , Tsubomi concedes, but from her amused tone Mob can tell she still thinks her theory is right. Her smile grows more fond, and she reaches out to take Mob's hand. This is what Mob has fantasized about since they were children, and surely there should be a spark of some kind, a sizzle in his core. But now that it's here, he just sees it for what it is: the affection of a friend. There are calluses on Tsubomi's palm, in odd places, from her gripping a tennis racket over years of practice. _thank you for accepting me, mob-kun_ , Tsubomi tells him, and there are tears at the corner of her eyes, joy and relief all at once.

A choked grunt erupts from Mob's other side, and he looks over to see Reigen glaring at Mob's and Tsubomi's joined hands like they're particularly nasty cockroaches. Tsubomi gives Mob the smuggest grin he has ever seen, and withdraws her hand daintily.

When the aliens come— for they _do_ come, impossibility of impossibilities, high on that peak on an innocuous late afternoon —Mob notes that Tsubomi watches Tome more than she does the ethereal beings, perhaps finding the older girl and her sobs of fulfillment and victory more captivating.

(He's also not unaware of the fact that he watches Reigen, who's also watching him.)

* * *

Tome, Kijibayashi, and Musashi are delighted that most of their kouhai are joining them at the same district high school, their friend group to be completed again after a year apart. Tsubomi, who has embraced the telepathy that didn't go away, is now part of that same friend group, revoking her popularity status for friends who can keep her secret. Teru, set to go to another private school, still comes around, ready to have another friendly spar with Mob when schedules permit.

Reigen gets taller at a steadily rapid pace, reaching his full height a month before their last year in middle school ends, all arms and legs. Mob's growth spurt comes late, so his best friend's got a half a foot on him for longer than he's comfortable with. Reigen takes advantage of it by throwing his arm around Mob's neck and pinning Mob's head high against his chest without warning, razzing and knuckling his hair until Mob can escape.

Mob dreams of shadowy overheated figures, a warm body pressed to his, hands on his skin. It gets worrisome when sometimes the bodies in these dreams are masculine rather than feminine, but it doesn't bother him for long.

The emptynumbnothing days have thinned out, and he smiles, laughs, gets angry, or despondent. He gets to feel, to exist, his emotions and his powers now mostly independent of each other.

Ritsu has learned to walk with his feet perched on his big brother's, their hands gripping each other tightly. Mob and their parents spoil Ritsu, they can't deny him a thing. He's brighter than a penny, sweet-tempered and utterly endearing, and their faces hovering over him are always smiling, always glad to see him.

On Saturdays, at dawn, Ritsu wakes up and stumbles down the hall, rubbing his eyes with his fists, and invades his older brother's room. He kneels and pokes Mob's sleeping form with his stuffed fox until Mob scrunches up his shut eyes and rumbles and hooks an arm around Ritsu, stuffing the little boy under the covers with him, and Ritsu can curl up around his fox, fall back asleep.

Mob is fifteen and ready for change. Until he isn't.

* * *

There are so many memories of this situation stuck in Mob's head that the details have gone runny like wet ink: of Reigen asleep on a floor with Mika tucked under his arm. They were each other's best friend before Mob ever even showed up. She loves Reigen, more than she loves anything or anyone else in this world.

It's not fair that on a mundane after-school afternoon like any other, Mob is the one who arrives first to the Aratakas' backyard and finds Mika.

His first thought is that he should get Reigen immediately, propel himself to the city library where Reigen and Tome are doing more paranormal research, using his psychic powers if he has to. But then Mika would be here all alone, which is the last thing she deserves. His sight goes blurry, and Mob realizes that he's already crying.

He sits beside Mika, who's laid out on her patch of well-sunned grass. She can barely even lift her head or open her eyes all the way, but her tail wags for him nonetheless. Mob pets her, tugs her ears, and cries and cries and cries, Mika rumbling in that old way meaning she's happy, breathing out, coming to a stop.

Mob takes the blanket Reigen's father wordlessly offers him, and envelops Mika's little body in it as carefully as he can. Reigen's mother can't go further than the back porch, lamenting, she was a good dog but she was so old, may she rest in peace.

Reigen arrives a few minutes later. It may as well have been an eternity, for how cruel fate is.

Mob struggles to stand, sniffling and chest-pained. Reigen has gone disconcertingly still, stiff as stone, his face an empty slate. "I'm so sorry, Arataka-kun," Mob weeps. He wants to add more, but the misery that suddenly crowds up against Reigen's eyes as he stares at Mika's little body under the blanket robs him of speech.

After a long, long time, Reigen says, flat and ill-defined, "When someone dies we don't get sad that they're gone. We get sad that they're not around for us anymore. Someone's dead but it's still all about our feelings." How exactly like Reigen to dissect his own grief and discredit it, too goddamn altruistic for his own good. Mob tries to take a step towards Reigen but Reigen steps back, as if he's denying himself any emotional support. "We just get sad that she won't be here to greet me after school or steal my food or suh-sleep in my bed—" His voice finally cracks, right alongside Mob's heart. "She's so old, she deserves to rest b-but…" Tears pool in Reigen's eyes and refuse to fall. "But I'm so selfish, I wanted her to stay, I _want_ her to stay, why did she leave—!"

Mob surges forward to hug Reigen tight. Reigen goes to pieces in his arms until he's shaking and hyperventilating from how hard he's sobbing. Mob can see in his mind's eye, so clearly, six-year-old Reigen crying because his dog was missing and he'd finally found her. Mob lets his own grief flow, silent, despairing. He does not say anything else. There's nothing he could ever say.

When Reigen finally pulls back, his eyes are puffy, glimmering, his face flushed and mouth trembling. A jagged knife twists in Mob's stomach, and he thinks that Reigen is right about what he said regarding selfishness. Mika has died but the perverse, fucked-up thought running through Mob's head is 'Taka's so pretty when he cries.'

As penance, Mob is the one who takes a shovel and digs a hole (a _grave_ , Mob's mind hisses) by the tree in the yard until his hands are chafed and near-bleeding. Reigen slumps over Mika's body like a spear snapped clean in two.

Mob watches his best friend lay Mika to rest, and feels a part of both of their childhoods die with her.

* * *

A few days after Mika has gone, Mob dreams of Reigen for the first time, so clearly that it's more real than his waking hours. Corrupted memory of a night in Reigen's camping tent, play-wrestling turned to something-else. Reigen's laugh becomes sensual, his tongue wicked. He pins Mob down and grinds, so slow and rough and Mob is burning with want. "Let me help you, Shige," Reigen purrs, his mouth hovering over Mob's in a teasing brush, and finally, _finally_ kisses him.

Mob cries out and is jolted awake right as he comes in his pajamas, a moan wrung out of him at every twitch. Despite the orgasm, he's still so hard, wisps of the dream still clinging to his belly, his mind, his heart. The soiled, damp cotton rasping over him becomes overwhelming. He clumsily shucks off his pants and his sweat-soaked shirt, and lies awake in the perfect dark, trying to catch his breath, his mind a pleasant thrum of white noise.

Until he realizes that he just dreamed about his best friend, his best friend who is still mourning the loss of his dog, and the heat shrivels up, leaving a naked, monstrous husk. Mob covers his face with his hands and exhales in shaky judders, tries to calm himself and go back to sleep.

He doesn't.


	8. kairos

kairos (n.): a perfect, delicate, crucial moment for action.

Reigen can't feel anything.

Food doesn't taste like much, all his senses rubbed raw. Each day claws him down to the bone, exhausted, a wretched stun of insomnia breaking up his nights, restless sleep and bad dreams. He's getting skinnier, no appetite, and sometimes he shakes so hard his hands spur into his body and he feels like he's coming apart. This is actually progress, from when he would lock himself in the bathroom three times a day and turn on the shower so he could muffle his sobs.

He's still in trouble with his parents. Some far-off second cousins came to visit during his middle school graduation and one of them remarked, "I get that it's sad, but it's just a pet, no need to be this much of a downer." Reigen doesn't remember what happened afterwards, blacking out for a few minutes, but he does have the cousin's broken nose and the ache of his knuckles to formulate a few guesses.

The other slow-twisting knife in his back is Mob.

After a year of being expressive and animated and whole, Mob has regressed. He doesn't speak more than three words at a time, and they're directed at Reigen's shoulder or his hands or his feet, never his face. He doesn't avoid Reigen, not exactly, but he goes literal days without talking to him, or Tsubomi or Musashi or anybody. He looks faded, like his blood's been diluted with water, dark circles around his eyes.

Reigen can't fault him for acting this way. Mob saw Mika die.

A small, vile thought resides in his head: he's grateful he wasn't around for it. That he gets to remember Mika only as she ever should be, alive and well, and didn't have to bear witness to the life draining from her.

He's a coward.

But he won't run from this.

Two weeks before high school begins (three weeks after Mika), Reigen corners Mob at his house.

Mob paints an almost perfect picture as the diligent student, poised at his table with his crisp new textbooks, learning in advance, except he's been staring at the exact same spot on the page he's on for the past few minutes. Reigen doesn't want to be the one to initiate this conversation, but he knows they could be here until winter and have Mob not move a millimeter.

"Do you remember, when we came over here, and mm–"— It still aches behind his teeth to say her name aloud — "she and Ritsu met for the first time?"

Mob had stiffened up the moment Reigen started talking, though his shoulders drop back down bit by bit, artificial, forced. "I do," he says evenly. "You said that Ritsu called out her name."

"His first word."

"Yes, it was his first word."

They're trapped in a silence stretched too thin; or rather, Reigen regards Mob as Mob fidgets and stares at the space beside Reigen's head, and Reigen is so _tired_.

He goes to Mob's window, and he tries to note what's happening out there, like who's on the street below, what the colors of the day are. Except for some reason it's getting difficult to see. "You didn't seem to believe me back then," he says, aiming for casual but the tears that slip into his mouth curdle his words to misplaced anger. "And you're just saying that because she's _dead_ and you want nothing to do with me anymore."

"What?" Mobs sounds so dumbfounded. Reigen's meanly satisfied that there are still some nerve endings alive in that boy after all. "Why are you saying that? That's not true."

"Then stop looking at me like that."

"Like what."

"Like you can't stand to meet my eyes anymore. Like you'd rather be anywhere but with me. Like I'm dead to you too."

There's the abrupt screech of a chair getting pushed back, and Reigen can't help turning around to see Mob advancing towards him, something crumbling in his face, shock and despair and guilt. So much guilt. "You're _not_ ," he says, his voice splintering, high and terrible, as if he's torn his own lungs out. "Arataka, I promise you're not. I don't know what to say. Or what to do for you, and I'm just so— I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Tears gather at his lashes but refuse to fall.

Reigen still feels the time-worn urge to reassure Mob, to tell him he'll be okay, they'll be okay. He's supposed to be the one who has himself together, except he's chipping off and clattering to the floor.

Mob sets his mouth in a nervous, determined line. "L-look." He suddenly puts trembling fingers to Reigen's wrist, the side of his neck, and Reigen sucks in a breath, his blood careening madly. "You're alive. You're here, and I'm here." He takes Reigen's hands and places them at the same spots on his own body, and Mob's pulse is hummingbird-fast too, almost matching Reigen's. "I'm sorry," he repeats, and Reigen can feel as well as hear Mob speak, his voice buzzing under Reigen's fingertips. Reigen has the sudden memory of the bruises on Mob's precious soft throat from almost two years ago, when Teru had choked him half to death. For Mob to not hesitate letting Reigen hold him like this is – Reigen swallows hard, something lodging itself between his ribs.

Mob slides Reigen's hands away, but leaves his fingers circled around Reigen's wrists like Reigen will vaporize if Mob doesn't keep him here. "I haven't been avoiding you, Arataka-kun," he sighs. "I've been. Processing." He flushes a little, abashed and guilty and so Mob-like. The excruciating ache of Mika has subsided to a dull throb, for now. Mob didn't abandon Reigen; he was just processing.

Mob releases Reigen's hands but Reigen is the one to grab hold now. "I know," he says, with a watery laugh. "We're fucked up."

Mob offers a tentative smile. "Yeah."

They're staring at each other. The pressure in the air has changed to something odd. Reigen tries to breathe past it and Mob's eyes fall to his chest, linger a second too long on his mouth. Before that can register in his brain, loud footfalls come down the hall outside. When Mob's mother nudges the bedroom door open, with a plate of snacks, Mob has slid back at his study table and Reigen is staring at the spot where Mob's face had been mere seconds ago, his cheeks still wet with forgotten tears.

* * *

High school is different.

Reigen breezed through middle school, helping Mob with his assignments and exams prep more than his own. He'd get passing marks in all his classes no matter how little he studied anyway. Now he's a little more inclined to do the work. But only a little.

It's a good distraction from the fact that nobody comes bounding up to greet him at the gate when he comes home from school anymore, the halls too quiet and empty. It's a good distraction from Mob's… strangeness.

Something has shifted in Mob. Not since the day they held each other's pulses, each other's hearts, has Mob let himself touch Reigen. He no longer nudges Reigen with a gentle teasing shoulder or elbow, or initiates hugs, or let them get less than six centimeters near each other. And whenever Reigen touches him, Mob spasms a bit, eye twitching. He tries to hide it, but Reigen knows Mob knows there's no hiding anything.

Mob's probably grown self-conscious of his body, and Reigen can understand. He's been sprouting so much leg hair he finally asked his mother if he could borrow a razor, and _that_ 's something he's not ready to broadcast to anyone.

By some unspoken agreement, they gravitate towards their own friend groups. They always put each other first, of course, but it's nice, having more people, more opinions and experiences to go through. Mob hangs with Tsubomi and Onigawara, and Reigen ends up with Tome more than he thought he would, and tolerates Teru a bit more. The three of them bond over paranormal stuff, but hardly anything else.

Up until Reigen learns that Teru has his own apartment, and that he lives there alone.

Reigen surveys this tiny kingdom, bed and closet and bathroom and dining table and kitchen all within a three-foot radius of each other, and declares, " _What_."

"My parents work abroad," Teru explains as he sets his groceries down on the table. "They wanted some stability for me so they got me my own place not too far from the schools they planned for me to go to. Of course I go to our family house when one of them is there."

"By yourself?" Reigen can't keep the disbelief out of his voice.

Teru levels him a scathing glare as if nothing's out of the ordinary. "Dude. I've been taking care of myself since grade school, and I lived here through middle school, and I've turned out okay, right?"

Aside from his truly eye-watering taste in fashion, Teru _is_ okay. He even has actual fresh vegetables in his grocery bags. But before Reigen and Mob met him, when he'd use his powers to get guys idolizing him and girls loving him and teachers praising him…

Reigen thought _his_ only-child ass got lonely sometimes, but Teru living with only a shelf of knick-knacks and toys as company…

When he tells Tome, she chortles, "Okay, so he's either an alien in a human suit or he's just a really weird rich sad asshole. What do we do about it?"

What they do is try to hang out with Teru more. A lot more. Reigen tries to veil them as spirit hunts, from bug-hunting in forests to beach trips to arcades. They bicker over how Teru keeps buying the most expensive things at ramen houses and making them feel poor. Sometimes Tsubomi and Mob tag along, but it's mostly just the three of them.

It takes Teru half a month to figure out what's going on. Reigen's disappointed, really. He thought the other boy was quicker-thinking than that.

"I'm not Kageyama," Teru tells them both, arms crossed and wearing the most withering scowl. They're at the entrance of an amusement park, where Reigen just spun such a lazy lie about ghost sightings that Teru had to put his foot down.

Reigen rolls his eyes. "Obviously." It's midday and Reigen fears he will melt into the asphalt. He glances about for a shady spot to wait under while Teru has his drama, and finds none. Ah well.

"Then what's with you treating me like him," Teru barks. "Like I need to be babied or whatever. I can tell you don't really want me around. I'm just the mentally stable alternative."

Reigen studies him in bafflement, which is a heroic feat considering the eye-watering neon green and blue shirt the other boy has on. He's about to speak his mind when, to his surprise, Tome beats him to it. "There's a lot to unpack there." She stomps up to Teru with her hands on her hips, and Teru, former ura banchou feared in all of Seasoning City, actually takes a step back.

"One: We're not treating you like Mob-kun, we're treating you like a friend. Because that's what friends do! We look out for each other. Taking you out to eat or go somewhere is our way of looking out for you. Two: you literally lug me or Reigen around like a sack of rice on our more dangerous exorcisms but I don't complain because I know you look out for us that way. Three: sometimes I don't want you around because you can be a bossy asshole, and I don't like getting a taste of my own medicine. But you're now my only mutual paranormal-involved friends, even if you guys are younger than me, so there. Four: call Mob-kun mentally unstable again like you've never been guilty of it, and psychic powers or not I will break my foot up in your ass."

They're all quiet for a few long seconds. Reigen suppresses the urge to clap, lest it ruin this golden hour. "Wow," Teru says at last, and he turns to Reigen with a quirked brow. "Did she give you a speech too?"

" _No_. Because _I'm_ not an emotionally stunted, human socialization-deprived, insecure diva like _you_."

Teru's jaw actually drops, cartoonish in effect. Then he grins, ocean-floor predator kind of grin, pleased and pissed off at the same time. "Fuck you, Rei-chan."

"Yeah, yeah, kiss my ass."

Tome snorts. " _Boys_."

As they await the ferris wheel ride, Reigen ponders what Teru said about him babying Mob. Reigen does no such babying, it's insulting to Mob's capacity to care for himself. But he's always done his best to help Mob when he needs it, be it academics or someone to listen to his struggles, shielding him from a truth if it's too painful. Is that babying too? Or is it just Reigen and his limited ability to express how much he deeply cares about Mob?

Reigen's memory is already starting to lose pages like an old book, only a few soft-focus images remaining from his early childhood; more and more, it feels like his life began with Mika, and Mob. The two constants of his universe, now whittled down to one.

Reigen suddenly gets a full-body shudder even though he's drenched in sweat and every inch of him exposed to the sun is warm. He's never dared to imagine what life would be like without Mob at his side.

He thinks on Mob and Tsubomi holding telepathic conversations, smiling and laughing to inside jokes only they will ever know about, the softness of Mob's smiles when he talks about her, and wonders if he might have to.

* * *

They're in the last stretch of summer and the sun is making up for all the months when it won't shine, vicious and white splashed across the sky at a pounding 38 degrees. Reigen wants to move the electric fan closer to the couch where he's splayed out, but he can barely even lift his head. He whimpers at Tome, who's in a better position to move the fan, and Tome snarls back. The pair of them sound like rabid animals, ravaged by the heat.

"You guys okay?" Tsubomi asks sweetly as she slides yet another cooking tray into the oven, because she and Teru and Mob are fucking _maniacs_.

Reigen wheezes, "How dare you. Honest to god baking, in _this_ weather, in the _afternoon_ , and you sound so unbothered. You guys are inhuman. Tome-san, tell those aliens they forgot to beam up some of their pals."

"We should never have left Hanazawa-kun's apartment," Tome laments, the words dribbling out of her mouth like a tape put in slow motion. "There was air conditioning. He's a spoiled brat who takes everything for granted anyway."

The eye-roll is so audible in Teru's voice as he says, "Believe it or not I actually don't want to spend an extra 15,000 this month in rent just on you guys. Now who's acting like spoiled brats?" He switches the mixing machine on before Reigen can reply, and Reigen glares at the stupid thing. Why do mixing machines always sound like NASCAR racers when all they do is churn batter and drown out conversation?

But he lets it go, getting distracted. Mob is the eye of the storm that is his friends invading his mother's kitchen. He's dicing peaches and apples with the intensity of a general commanding cornered troops. He was so panicked, when he'd called them on Teru's phone earlier, babbling about how his mother's restaurant had gotten a mass catering order but she was still so busy with other projects that for some reason she decided to dump this responsibility on her teenaged son instead of telling the customer to go to other bakeries. Reigen's torn between being miffed that she's pressuring her son so much, and touched that she trusts him so much too.

"I'm sorry Tome-san and I aren't much help, Mob," he calls out over the whine of the mixing machine, and Mob looks directly at him for the first time since he'd hustled everyone into the kitchen. The tight expression on his face flickers into an indeterminate shade of emotion.

"Where's your shirt," he asks.

Reigen uses his foot to point at said shirt where he shucked it to the floor five minutes ago in a last futile attempt at lowering his temperature. "Sorry, Mob. I know it'd be unsanitary, if I was baking. But I'm not, because I'm a feeble overheating human being and not an esper."

"Also not an esper here," Tome croaks. "If the stigma against female nudity didn't exist I'd be in my birthday suit right now."

"Fuck stigma!" Reigen echoes. "We're overheating human beings!" He forces his arm out for a high-five and is appeased when Tome at least taps some of her fingers to his palm.

"Um, let's not do nudity of any kind, please," Tsubomi begs them, a faint blush on her cheeks, or maybe it's the ungodly heat finally getting to her. "It's okay, you guys being here means a lot to Mob-kun. Right, Mob?" She adds these last two words with some force, startling Mob out of his catatonic pause, and he goes right back to dicing fruits like they'd threatened Ritsu, or something.

Reigen finally remembers the reason why Mob would stare so long: the thin scars on Reigen's body, crisscrossing roadmaps stemming from one source alone. Reigen wants to kick himself for not considering how shaken up Mob would still be about this, how deep as bedrock his self-shame must still lie. "I'm sorry," he says again, lower and more solemn this time. Only Mob hears him say it, because only Mob was meant to, and Mob nods, tries on a reassuring smile that hangs crooked and ends up looking pained instead.

Reigen eventually finds it in himself to put his shirt back on and shove Tome into helping the others. They finish earlier than planned, and they get to sample the extra tarts that Mob had ended up making aside from the catering order.

Everyone pretty much devolves when they get a first bite. "Oh, Mob-kun, this is so good!" Tsubomi gushes. Tome up and tries to shove the entire tart into her mouth, it being the size of a saucer not deterring her at all. Teru remarks, "This is seriously better than what some of the best cafes in the city serve. Holy shit, Kageyama-kun."

Mob glances at each of them with a shy grin that keeps expanding. He looks to Reigen last, and asks, "Why haven't you tried it yet?"

Reigen keeps studying the tart in awe. It even _looks_ as good as it smells, with the peach and apple slices on top of it arranged into a fiery rose. And to think that Mob had to decorate a hundred tarts this way, by hand. Well, he started by hand but nerves got the better of him and he used his powers to finish off the remaining tarts, but still. "You just keep getting better at this," Reigen marvels. "Just when I thought you couldn't top it off, like that murasaki imo cake you made last year, or the éclair tower you made with your mom. You just…" His voice softens; he can't help it. His affection for Mob is clogging his throat. "You're really something, Shigeo."

Mob's helpless smile is almost as blinding as the late afternoon sun outside, and Reigen's chest aches from it. "Just eat the damn thing already," Tome chuckles, but she also levels a proud smirk at Mob.

Reigen huffs and slices into it. The moment the tart touches his tongue, his body just stops listening to him. His eyes roll in his skull as he lets out an undignified, borderline pornographic moan.

Tome explodes into scandalized cackles, and Teru guffaws, "You okay there? Should we give you and the tart some privacy?" Tsubomi is doing her best to smother her embarrassed splutters. Reigen opens his eyes again only after he's savored and swallowed, ready to glare at all of them and to tell Mob that he should be arrested for making something this sinful, except Mob isn't on the couch with them anymore. He's at the kitchen sink frantically splashing water onto himself, the back of his neck beet red.

Reigen feels himself flush too, molten hooks burying themselves into his belly, tugging downwards. This breathless hesitation between Mob and him has been here for two years; longer than that, even. Like they're held on the edge of something, over a cliff or the highway overpass or the river where the rapids get bad. Something.

Reigen doesn't know how long they can keep ignoring it, for the sake of their friendship.

* * *

The phone's ringing for too long.

Reigen has to dig his fingers into his thigh to stop himself from twisting the phone cord again; any more fidgeting and he could fray the wires completely.

It finally picks up, and Mob's mother is saying something in polite, tired tones. Reigen regrets having to speak over her. "Hi auntie, it's me," he says in a rush. "I'm really sorry, I know it's late, but I need to talk to Mob. Please." He's doing his best to not have his words shake apart, but Mob's mother recognizes the urgency in his tone anyway, uttering soft reassurances before she puts down the phone to get Mob.

By the time Mob gets on the line Reigen has ripped a hole in his sweatpants, a desperate attempt to misdirect his frustration. "Arataka," Mob says, and oh, Reigen didn't want or need to cry before, but a blubber escapes him anyway, Mob's firm voice saying his name like that. "Arataka, what happened?"

"They're getting divorced. My parents. They're getting divorced."

They're quiet for a minute, the tick of the living room clock rising from obscurity to fill Reigen's senses. He distracts himself from his crippling fear of the future by trying to match the rhythm of Mob's breathing, their chests moving in sync. Reigen has spent enough time on the phone with Mob to be able to read the fall of his breath as easily as his face, and right now Mob is stunned, anxious, mind going a thousand kilometers a second.

Reigen's a month shy of eighteen, and he's looked demons in the eye and cheated death, but he's never felt this young, this powerless.

Thankfully Mob doesn't say 'I'm sorry,' or such an automatic answer, no matter how sincerely meant, might've made Reigen punch something. Instead, he asks, "When did they tell you?"

"After dinner."

(Reigen's father didn't say it so much as announce it, decree it, one sentence and then he was out to the back door to go smoke, not even bothering to hide his intent like he used to.)

"What's gonna happen?"

(It spoke to his mother's deep exhaustion that she talked in English. "I'm moving to Wasabi City. I've already found a new job doing textbook translations, so I can support you when…" She backpedaled, took a breath. " _If_ you want to come with me. Your dad and I have agreed to at least let you finish your school year here, then you can transfer.")

"I'm staying here. My life is here. Tome and Teru and Tsubomi are here. You're here."

"So…" Mob sounds hesitant, like it's paining him to ask this. "Are you sure you don't want to go with her?"

(Reigen didn't bother to answer her in her native tongue, yelling in Japanese instead, why are you leaving Seasoning City, why are you leaving _me_. She sobbed, "Taka, I tried to stay near, I tried my best to look for places to stay. But there are too little options anywhere in the city without having to ask your father for favors. And I don't want to have to do that. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry if it's selfish of me. But I don't, can't, and won't ever stop loving you, or love you less, no matter where I am in this universe.")

Reigen admits in a trembling whisper, "I don't know what I want." He presses the heel of his hand to his eye, grinding down so hard he feels his bones scrape together. "I don't know why I'm— I knew this would happen. I've been waiting for it for _years_. They won't have to pretend to be happy anymore, I won't have to pretend everything's a-okay. It's a fucking relief. So why am I still… why did I _hope_."

"Because they're your parents," Mob says, so gentle and soft it almost disappears into the late night. "Because we always think they're going to stay the same, or we're all going to stay the same." He quavers. "But we're not. And…it's okay to not be okay with it."

Reigen brays a near-hysterical laugh. "Is it really, though."

("I know you feel like being a mixed child makes you less and never whole. God knows I've gotten enough grief about that, from all sides. But you're _not_ the reason we're divorcing." His mother's eyes were blazing. " _Never_ think you're the reason. You're just you. Taka, you're always gonna be your own person. You're smart and fiercely caring, and the best thing that's ever happened to me. Ask Mob and anybody else and I'm sure they'll say the same.")

" _Yes_ ," Mob bites out, with grittier determination. "Because it's you, and you're hurt. And whether you're okay or not, I'll be here for you no matter what. Always."

Reigen laughs again, a lower, pitiful smothered thing. "Cross your heart?"

("Things change," his mother murmured into his hair as she spilled tears that scorched his shoulder. "It's not end-of-the-world-evil or heaven-on-earth-good, all the time. What is, is. And we have to accept that. We have to learn to be okay, no matter how much things change." Reigen couldn't answer her, just clinging to her tighter instead.)

"And hope to die," Mob breathes out, worryingly sincere.

* * *

Tome wants to take a break from studying for all her college admissions tests by getting drunk. Teru, the only one of them left aside from Mob who isn't actually of legal age, is the first one to agree, the truant. Of course, Reigen has to accompany the minor and make sure nothing bad happens. He's nice like that. They'd invited Mob and Tsubomi but they politely declined, so it's just the three of them in Teru's apartment with a six pack and enough snacks to last them until morning.

At least, Reigen _thought_ he could last until morning. Now he's just trying to last through this one can of beer.

"Seriously?" Tome giggles, staring down at him where he's puddled onto a nice firm bit of floor. "I thought you said you'd gotten drunk before."

"'F course, plenty of times," Reigen slurs. "They let me drink at home."

Teru's voice floats from the bathroom. Or the ceiling? Who knows. "What did you drink?"

"Umeshu."

"Was it at least an actually alcoholic kind of umeshu?"

Reigen has to pause his varied trains of thought to think very hard. "They're not all alcoholic?" he asks, betrayed. Here he was, gloating about throwing back hard drinks like the rest of his adult relatives since fifteen, and it turns out he was probably just given boxed juice. Boxed juice dressed up fancy and injected with overinflated ego. He wants to sit up and cry out his indignation but instead he just flops around onto his belly.

Thank all the gods Mob won't see him like this, at least.

A shotgun blast of sound, and Reigen jerks his head up to see Teru wielding his digital camera with an evil gremlin grin. "Here's one for the history books," he chortles, showing the screen to Tome, who hoots in delight.

With more speed and dexterity than anybody in the room thought possible, Reigen pulls himself to his feet and grabs Teru by the arm. "You're going to delete that," he says, enunciating each word at a dangerously low register, "and then give me that camera."

Teru's expression has dropped into something startled and blank. He has to shake himself when Reigen ends up snatching the camera from his hand, prancing away. "Ah, shit," he laughs, almost to himself. "Why'd I let you do that."

"Because clearly I'm the only one here without a heart wicked enough for blackmail," Reigen pronounces, flopping onto Teru's bed and looking at the shelf of toys through the camera lens, the upwards artsy angles of it.

Teru sits at the foot of the bed, his leg bumping into Reigen's feet, and he shakes his head. "I can't believe I used to have a crush on you."

Reigen swears he can feel the movie of his life just smash to pause. "Eh?"

"Oh my," Tome says, glancing between the two of them as she rips open a bag of chips and settles into a chair like she's watching a soap opera, the little shit.

Teru chuckles. "Yeah, you heard me. But I just used to. It's in the past now."

"But…" Reigen can't remember how sentences work. "Why even?"

"Heh. You have no idea how gorgeous you are, do you?"

" _Eh_?"

Teru openly laughs again, lets his gaze rake up and down Reigen's body. Reigen doesn't ball himself up or try to hide from it, though he wants to. "You _are_ ," Teru says. "You're confident and smart and magnetic. You drew me in. But you and Kageyama..." He trails off with an almost-wistful sigh. "I never had a chance. Took a while to nip it in the bud, though. You made it too hard." Teru waggles his brows in such a gross way that Reigen starts snickering, still too surprised to fully process all that's just been said.

They're quiet for a while. This unexpected confession explains a lot of things about Teru, the odd things he used to say or do years ago, now clicking into place. But it's not awkward between them, just amicable and warm, friends shooting the shit at two in the morning like any other teenage clique.

Tome asks, suddenly, "So?"

Reigen grumbles, "So what?", letting his eyes drift closed, slouching against the wall.

"So because it looks like literally everybody knows how long you've been crushing on Mob-kun, what're you gonna do?"

" _Eh?_ " Reigen hates that he keeps saying this, like a skipped track, like his brain took a vacation. He's supposed to be unflappable, but being drunk is such a weird fucking thing.

"Yeah," Teru chimes in with a smirk. "Aren't you gonna do anything?"

Reigen points an accusing finger at his good-for-nothing friends, his eyes huge in his head. "Look," he starts, "I've known Mob since we were both kids. Tiny kid babies. He's like a brother to me, c'mon. And my only-child syndrome just gets crazy sometimes. That's all."

"Childhood sweethearts, then." Teru is undeterred.

"Oh you have _got_ to stop. You're creepy when you're drunk."

Tome eggs him on, "C'mon, why would it be so bad? I bet nobody's made you feel the way Mob-kun does."

"That's exactly the thing," Reigen snaps, no longer amused about this conversation that's fast become a confrontation. The others sense it too, and they shut up, but Reigen can't make himself shut up either. "That's how I _know_ it's just friendship. Nobody else made me feel anything. I got no crushes, no girlfriends, or boyfriends, or any want for it. I only ever get boners waking up, or when I'm not even thinking about anything in particular. Sex looks like it takes way too much effort." The words he pulls up his throat sting worse and worse. "With Mob I guess I feel a bit too fond of him but. I don't know. I don't even know. But how can I know if I don't have a baseline for comparison?"

Now they're silent because they're all puzzling out the situation. "You could always try it?" Tome suggests. "Baby steps, obviously, so kissing?"

Reigen scoffs. "Like _that_ thought's never occurred to me at all. But it's hard to find participants to the 'let's find out what's wrong with me' survey." He brightens up. "Hey, so can I try with you?"

Tome hyena-laughs, just this side of savage. "Don't you fuckin' dare."

"That's fair." Reigen turns to Teru, who's been watching on in smudged bemusement. "I'm gonna kiss you now."

It's Teru's turn to splutter " _Eh?_ " before Reigen grabs Teru by the shirt and mashes their mouths together. It's exactly as weird as he thought it'd be. The teeth on his lips, the sliminess, not helped by the alcohol reeking between them. "Yep, that did nothing," Reigen says cheerfully as he draws away.

Teru, who's been frozen through this whole ordeal like the winter outside, growls out, "That was the shittiest fucking kiss I've ever had in my _life_ ," but for some reason he's hauling Reigen right back in. Teru takes the lead this time, pushing, demanding. Reigen tries to mimic the other boy's actions, and it's slightly more pleasant, especially with less teeth, but Teru's tongue sliding against his and the rumble in the other boy's chest, the beginnings of a moan, make him pull away.

Reigen licks his lips and grimaces. "Still too weird."

Teru's stuck staring at Reigen's mouth, and he inhales slow like he's trying to kick his higher processes on again. "You are so unfair," he says, voice scraped from the bottom of the barrel, like he wants nothing more than to pin Reigen down and flay him alive. Or is that what lust sounds like? Reigen titters with mirth. Teru scowls. "That really did nothing for you?"

"Nope," Reigen says cheerfully. "I know. I'm a freak." His voice goes brittle, falling short of the joking tone he was aiming for. This thought he's never let crystallize all these years finally emerging into the open air. Spoken truth.

Teru's face softens, and he admonishes, "Hey, no, don't say that. A little unusual, sure, but not a freak. I'm pretty sure me being an esper trumps that."

"Heh. You're the second of three espers I know. Four, if you count that weird businessman guy we ran into in middle school. Trust me, you guys aren't that special. I could probably throw a stone in a crowd and land on one of you."

Tome, who's been watching the two of them with a contained sort of fascination, interjects with: "Constructive criticism? Teru-kun, you kiss like a slobbery animal. That's a mouth, not a pizza slice. You don't go all—" She mimics the aforementioned terrible kissing, tongue lolling up and down, jaw snapping around. Reigen snickers as he takes a picture of her with the camera.

Teru groans and sinks back onto his bed. "Man, thank fuck you guys are such annoying little shits. I thought my hard-on would never go down."

Reigen laughs so hard he nearly cries.

* * *

Ritsu soars through the Kageyamas' backyard with elated shrieks, his Superman pose accentuated by the red bath towel tied around his neck. "I'm flying!" he crows over and over again into the late Friday afternoon. He drifts by Reigen's head, and Reigen calls out, "How's the air up there, Kryptonian?"

The little boy hardly even spares him a glance, not that Reigen's surprised.

When Ritsu came into the world squalling and unexpected, Reigen at first hoped to share this brand new brother with Mob, to get the baby to adore both of them.

But he knows, watching Mob manipulate Ritsu carefully under and over tree branches with gentle flicks of his fingers, tenderness radiating from him as strongly as his aural glow, that he can never and will never be able to compete against that.

Ritsu lands back on the ground, and immediately dashes himself against Mob's legs. "Nii-san, again!" he demands, four years old and at the top of the world.

"No, Mom and Dad will be home soon, and they'll get jealous and try to steal you out of the sky," Mob chuckles.

Ritsu pouts, but doesn't press the issue. Instead, he asks, "When will I make myself fly? And twist spoons? Like you?"

Mob jolts, and stammers, "I. Um. I don't know, Ri-chan. Maybe soon. Or maybe later. We can't know for sure."

"But…" Ritsu scowls so much Reigen's afraid he'll pull a muscle. "What if I don't get powers?"

At this query, Mob doesn't even have to think about an answer. He gets on one knee in order to look Ritsu in the eye, his hands spanning his little brother's shoulders. "That's okay," he says firmly. "That's more than okay. Powers aren't important, Ritsu. You're already smart and cool and brave. Just like your Reigen-san." He beams up at Reigen, so convinced of his place in the world. Reigen's heart almost bruises against his ribcage from trying to throw itself at Mob's feet.

He's about to divert this feeling by spouting off his own reassuring words to Ritsu when the boy abruptly stomps as hard as he can, his indignant face almost the same shade as his makeshift cape. "I don't _wanna_ be like Reigen-san!" he yells.

"Ouch," Reigen gasps, his hand drifting to his mouth. Oh gods, that actually _stung_. "I don't think he likes me anymore, Mob," he tries to joke, but Ritsu drowns him out, voicebox worthy of klaxon alarms: "Nii-san, I wanna be like _you_."

Mob blanches and scoops Ritsu up to carry him inside the house before the neighbors come snooping. Reigen trails behind them and sits at the kitchen, listening to Ritsu's tantrum, Mob's low soothing reassurances, floating down through the floorboards.

Reigen's munched his way around an entire apple by the time Mob comes downstairs, rumpled and tired. "He cried himself to sleep," he mumbles, his feet dragging across the tiles. He gets a carton of milk from the refrigerator and pours himself a full glass that he downs in seconds.

"Ah, shit. I'm sorry," Reigen sighs, staring down at the apple core in his hands. "He won't understand now, but he will. Things will be okay, don't worry."

Mob just pours himself more milk and throws it back. Reigen can't help huffing in amazement. "It's mid-October. Aren't you getting brain freeze from how cold that is?" Mob cracks an eye open at him, and Reigen makes the mistake of looking down to see Mob's throat working furiously as he finishes his glass. Reigen gulps and turns away. Mob _sees_ him turn away. This isn't exactly subtle of him.

Reigen marches to the waste basket and tosses the apple core away, then to the sink to wash his hands, trying to ignore the foreboding silence at his back. When he finishes, he finds Mob leaned against the kitchen island, regarding him with a thoughtful stare.

Mob's been in better shape ever since he first joined the Body Improvement Club back in middle school, and again in high school, with the identically-named club also started by Goda Musashi. He once told Reigen that focusing on the exercising calms him, especially on the bad days when his thoughts and emotions get too loud. Using the physical exertion for the mental health. Reigen's always supported it. These past two years, however, he's started to look the part too. He's not as muscle-bound as Goda and the others, but he's somehow taller now, almost as tall as Reigen, and broader, his shoulders filled out. Reigen tries to tell himself that it's just good posture, except Mob crosses his arms and his shirt stretches out too tight. Mob could kick his ass without even needing his powers.

Reigen doesn't know what to feel about that.

"What's with that look?" Reigen asks instead, shoving his jumbled mess of imaginings back into a dark room and locking them up. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Mob lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug. "I've just been thinking about college, again. What Ritsu will feel once I have to go. I don't want to leave him."

"Ritsu will be fine," Reigen says. "It's your parents I'm worried about. Seems like you both share the accidentally scathing honesty."

Mob slides him a sheepish grin. "Sorry about what he said, by the way."

"Ehh, it's just kids being kids." Reigen pauses. "So you've been thinking about what course you want?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Not yet. Why?"

"At least mention the institute you wanna go to." For some reason, Mob sounds. Agitated. Reigen frowns at him.

"Why? Tell me. I know you've probably decided already, so tell me."

Mob takes a breath, uncrossing his arms to grip the counter behind him. "The culinary art college in Buffet City."

Reigen's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. Buffet City is two provinces away from home. Far, far away from the university Reigen has been eyeing. Mob and Reigen will hardly have time to see each other except once a year.

Reigen claps, the sudden sound startling Mob. "Great! I've been looking at places there too!"

Mob's eyes narrow at him. "Which ones?"

"Some of them! None too definite yet but it sure seems like the place to be!" Reigen sticks his hands in his pockets. "Yep, definitely some dream schools there."

Mob studies him, his face impassable as stone. "Funny, because Tsubomi-chan told me that Tome-san told her that you were planning to go to the same university she's in. The one just outside Wasabi City. Where your mom lives."

Ah, fuck.

Reigen tries to backtrack. "Those gossipers. Well, that's old news, because I've changed my mind, because the programs—"

"Because of me," Mob grits out through his clenched jaw, sandpaper-sharp. "You changed your mind because of _me_. Stop lying to me, Arataka."

Mob's never so much as raised his voice at a mosquito for biting him, but right now he's angry. Angry at Reigen, no less. It feels like someone's lit a match inside Reigen's lungs, a struggle for air over the twisting burn.

"Okay, so maybe I did," he concedes, "but it doesn't matter, I—"

"It doesn't matter? Arataka, this is your future we're talking about here, your life! Why—"

"That's not what I meant! Of course it matters, but I don't care where I'll end up. A degree is always a degree, that'll help me get a job and work under the hellhole that is capitalism—"

"But what about what you want to do? I want to bake, because it's what I'm good at, and I like it. What about you?"

"I'm good at being with you." Mob's face empties, his eyes and mouth zeroes of shock, and Reigen sputters, "At working with you. Hell, even with Teru and Tsubomi. Dispatching ghosts and spirits, helping people. It's really stuck with me, Mob. I want to find a way to work towards that, if I can. But I know you don't want a life that revolves around the paranormal, so I respect that, of course I do."

Mob covers his face. He gusts out a shaky breath. "So you'd give up your dream."

"Hell no! But I can achieve my dream whether I'm in Wasabi City or Buffet City, that's what I'm trying to tell you."

"You're acting like you don't have a choice in the matter," Mob roars, and the walls rattle, the house inhaling his outrage. Reigen almost bites off his tongue in his scrabble to stay upright. "Like your life is dictated by mine! I never asked you to do all these things for me, to sacrifice—" Mob freezes, head tilting towards the second floor, he and Reigen both realizing they could wake Ritsu up.

Reigen tries to snuff out the smoldering in his lungs, and turns to take his bike and go.

He gets as far as the center of the backyard when Mob sprints after him, calling his name with a wrenched-free note in it piercing worse than any bullet. Reigen slows to a stop, and decides to talk, but he doesn't look behind himself to face Mob. He doesn't know if he can.

"You never had to ask me anything. You're presuming a lot by saying you made me do the things I do for you. I do what I do because I _want_ to. I… I just assumed that this is what you'd want, too. Is this… is this not something you want? You don't want us to stay together anymore? Do you _want_ us to be apart?"

" _No_." The word cracks and spills out of Mob with such vehemence Reigen shivers. "Never, you're my best friend, of course not."

"Then why—"

"i won't be able to hold myself back anymore."

"…what?"

When Reigen turns to look at him, Mob has his face in his hands again. His shoulders are trembling, his hair slowly floating upwards. Reigen's blood leaves his extremities. Mob's never had an explosion like this in years, that he knows of. He struggles to find the words that used to come so easily. that comforted Mob. But what could he even say when _he_ 's the reason Mob's like this, the cause of his distress and pain.

"Shige—"

The aura creeps in, inkier than its usual clear blue, behaving a little too like the times— Reigen utters a strangled curse, involuntarily stepping back— the times 'Shigeo' had come out to play. Mob lifts his head. His eyes are glassy, leaking white light like tears, like lightning bolts. "Taka-chan," he breathes, in Mob's not-voice. He floats off his feet.

Reigen casts about in desperation for an escape route but finds none, and he gets backed into a tree, the bark digging into his back. The fight he wants to put up shrivels and dies as Mob crowds in, his body shrouding Reigen's completely. Reigen has trouble standing. The taste of phosphorus sticks to his skin, afterimage of Mob's blinding aura imprinted behind his eyes even when he blinks them closed. He can feel his flimsy eggshell bones cracking already, erratic horror trauma of four years ago. "Long time no see, 'Shigeo,'" he rasps, voice dripping with as much disdain as he can muster.

'Shigeo's face is not the empty canvas like Reigen remembers. It's almost as expressive as Mob's. Right now it's amused, enraptured, as he says, "This is the first time this has happened without me being knocked unconscious. It's much nicer." Reigen would scream for help, for anything, except he could hit the ground dead anyway, except Ritsu could come out of the house, _oh god Ritsu._

"Why are you back?" Reigen spits. "What made you come back?"

'Shigeo' hums and. And. And he drags his nose across Reigen's neck, his pulse point. Reigen's palms dig into the bark of the tree so hard he knows he's cut himself. "What the _fuck_ ," he chokes out.

"Because I've wanted to swallow you whole for years now," 'Shigeo' purrs his answer.

Reigen flushes, the fear and confusion now warring with unfiltered rage. "I thought you wanted Tsubomi," he manages to say.

'Shigeo' levels him a condescending smirk. "Tsubomi? She likes someone else. For a long time now. But not for as long as I've liked you."

 _"Stop_ ," Reigen pleads, caught between a shout and a sob. "Stop it. Bring Mob back."

"There's no Mob versus Shigeo here. Not now." A hand as bright and charged as a dying star alights on Reigen's wrist, drags up his forearm, and Reigen can't stop his shudder. "Not anymore." The hand is on his neck now, cupped gentle, possessive. Eyes track Reigen's every facial expression, and the voice of Reigen's best friend is saying, "I'm the Shigeo who's learned just how precious you are to me. And I'm the Mob who's sick of pretending I don't want you all to myself."

Reigen cries out, "you're _lying_ ," and tries to lash out, but he gets pinned down. One firm hand holds both his wrists in, the other running over his chest. Their bodies get glued together, a knee between Reigen's thighs. A moan climbs up to Reigen's mouth but he bites it back so hard the enamel of his teeth squeals in his head. He quails when lips press themselves to his ear and confess words in soft, honeyed tones:

"I've been touching myself every day since we were fifteen. Because of your face. Your voice. Your hands. Your body. Your kindness. Your heart." It's gloating, now. "Because I know I have your heart, just like you've always had mine. All of you is mine. All of me is yours."

Reigen flinches as, to his complete and utter horror, he feels himself grow hard. A rough thrust and a mutual hardness against him finally jostles out the loud moan he's been suppressing. It's stoppered by a mouth kissing him, licking into him so deep. Reigen's eyes slide shut as he revels in it, his defenses crumpling, wiping away.

In the rare times Reigen would let himself wonder what it would be like to kiss Mob, Reigen never imagined it to be like this.

Reigen never imagined it like this because _Mob_ is not like this. This is not his Mob. Mob would never hurt him, especially not this way, tearing his heart out and eating the pieces right in front of him.

And this is what gives him the power to say:

"stop."

"Stop."

" _Stop_."

" _STOP_!"

He plants his feet and shoves his assailant backwards. By some divine power looking out for him, 'Mob' does get shoved off. He snarls at Reigen with blazing white eyes, and Reigen tells him, exhausted, "Kill me already. Do it fast. Just don't hurt your parents, or your little brother, or anybody else. As long as it's just me. Just me."

'Mob' is baffled. He stares at Reigen like he's seeing him for the first time. The dark blue glow around him slowly drips away, and his hair settles down, and he floats back onto the ground. Otherwise, the expression on Mob's face doesn't change at all. He _was_ telling the truth. He was himself, even in that state. He was aware, he was in control of his own actions and still he chose—

Reigen doesn't realize he's crying until Mob's face goes ashen and aghast, and Mob stammers, "oh fuck oh god arataka i'm sorry i shouldn't have done that i'm sorry i'm so sorry—" He gasps, panicking. Reigen turns to see the Kageyamas off in the distance, coming down the sidewalk with groceries for their sons.

Mob tries to hold out a trembling hand to Reigen, but Reigen recoils away. He grabs his bike where it leans against the fence, and Mob says, one last time, in tears now himself, "Arataka, I'm _sorry_."

Reigen looks his best friend in the eye, and gives him a sad smile. "I know you are."

He bikes away, the night crashing around him, so dark it smudges out even the constellations above. He goes out to the river, the one where the rapids get bad, and screams.

* * *

Everybody wants to know what happened between Reigen and Mob. It's all anyone can talk about.

He tells everyone who asks that they're doing fine.

The ones who don't ask are the ones who don't have to, who hear the whole story from the only other person involved. Teru, Tome, and Tsubomi all take their turns to hug him, to tell him that he can talk with them anytime, whenever he's ready.

They don't ask him to talk to Mob.

Graduation rolls around. Mob's parents and Reigen's parents try to get a picture of them together, to be added beside elementary and middle school memories, the complete set.

They don't get one.


	9. interlude i: panoply

panoply (n.): a collection in display; complete protection for spiritual warfare.

Teruki is mulling over pamphlets of the universities his parents are nudging him into aiming for. Years ago, he'd outlined the trajectory of his life into pleasing them, into gaining everyone's favor. He'd planned on cheating into the country's top university, getting the highest honors. Now he wants to keep doing things his own way, not beholden to his powers.

A sudden tremor rocks his building, almost flopping him off his bed, and he thinks with nonsensical alarm of little earthquakes, slumbering tsunamis. A comet streaks over his window, ripping apart the night, except it's not a comet. It's Mob, adorned in a writhing aura so dark, so _huge_ it douses the stars. Teruki leaps out his door and up the stairs to the roof of his apartment.

Mob is suspended in the heavens, ready to drop and lay waste to civilization. Teruki's pulse rattles in his veins, the courage that drove him into action a minute ago now all used up. But then Mob's mouth opens, blazing white light erupting from it, same as his eyes, and sobs, " _help_."

Teruki can't think of why Mob would come here to him, and not to Tsubomi, or Reigen. Of course Reigen, his anchor, his haven, his calm in the storm. Teruki can't think of why, unless something's gone wrong, unless…

"Kageyama-kun, where's Reigen?" he gasps before he can stop himself. Worst-case scenarios flood his mind, of Reigen sick, or hurt, or oh gods—

Mob's face contorts into sorrow beyond description. He throws his head back and _screams_.

Teruki is knocked flat on his ass at the shockwave. Mob is broadcasting his pain, unfounded tears in Teruki's eyes at the anguishdespair _shame_. Teruki tries to stand but it's too much, he's yelling alongside Mob now too, how long has Mob lived feeling like this, how long has he been suffering? He almost misses the figure that's come up the stairs to join them on the roof, and he has to furiously blink his eyes clear.

Tsubomi is crying too, just as affected by Mob, but she's silent and steady as she walks right into Mob's inferno. She stretches her arm out.

Teruki's seen Tsubomi's aura at work before: a gentle green, tropical ocean shallows still reachable from shore. But now it's bursting, billowing, and the girl's voice rings like a church bell: "Calm down." It's not a plea, or a request. For what seems like eternity, nothing happens. Tsubomi's arm trembles, bullets of sweat mixing with her tears. Dreadful trails of blood begin to drip from her nose. But slowly, so slowly, Mob's cries quiet down. Teruki stops weeping tears not his own, and he drags in lungfuls of brisk air, shaking from the force of it.

Mob's still glowing, still floating, but he's more broken boy than weapon of mass destruction now, the lights from his orifices eking in slow streams. Tsubomi wipes at her face. "Mob-kun, what happened?" she asks, like she hasn't just subverted a small apocalypse, like her friend is more important than her injuries. Teruki is both concerned and impressed by how much stronger she's become.

"Look into his mind," he suggests, clambering to his feet. "He's in no state to talk right now, and Reigen could be in trouble."

Mob flinches, his aura flaring up again, and he weeps, "no i don't want you to _see_ —"

"Then tell us," Tsubomi implores him. "Please."

After the truth is dragged out, after Mob's collapsed on Teruki's spare futon, after Teruki's cellphone gets the text from Reigen (im ok. dnt look 4 me. just need 2 b alone. pls.), after all and everything, Teruki finds himself here. He's sat with Tsubomi on his building's fire escape, listening to Tome on speaker halfheartedly curse out Mob's rashness, more shaken than irate.

"Besides," she snaps, cutting off her own tirade, "aren't you and Mob having feelings for each other again, Tsubomi-chan?"

"What? No! Before tonight, Mob-kun and I even thought that Reigen-kun was already dating Hanazawa-kun—"

" _What_?" Teruki's stunned, then amazed, laughing from the inanity, "Holy shit, all we could've done was compare notes about these two idiots and we'd have avoided this whole mess."

"But we didn't," Tsubomi sighs. "And it's all ended badly. So badly."

Teruki tries to reassure her, erase that heavy guilt from her face. "Let's just give them some time, they'll come around."

"'Come around?'" Tome's raised her voice again, this time with untampered rage. "Reigen just got assaulted and you think he'll just _come around_?"

"But he likes Kageyama-kun…!"

"That's not the point!" Tome's words crack, somehow on the verge of tears, "Reigen's had to live with Mob longer than all of us. Has it even occurred to you what that's like for him, for _us_ , no powers to protect us from the scars we could get? Scars Reigen already has? For Mob to force himself on him like that— Fuck."

Teruki's cowed into silent contemplation, but Tsubomi stumbles to say, "Mob-kun's been so much better since then, this is just a lapse, he'll be better—!"

"Are you seriously taking Mob's side right now, Tsubomi?"

"N-no, of course not, I… I just…"

Tome lets out an empty chuckle. "I know what you're thinking. Reigen is Mob's off-switch. The one to calm him down when he loses control, so they need to stay together. Except Reigen's just a human being, no matter how much he bullshits us otherwise. He's already been through way too much, and it's not fair to ask any more of him just because Mob's a fuhh—" She snarls and exhales, scraping static. "I'm shutting up now before I say shit I'm gonna regret."

Tsubomi flinches like she's been slapped. "I'm sorry, Tome-san. I really am. You're right of course, you're right."

For a few seconds there is tense, heavy silence. Teruki sighs and steps in. "Look, they're both hurting over this. It's gonna be bad for Reigen-kun, and it's gonna make Kageyama-kun's problem even worse, so. Let's have them breathe and sort themselves out, however long it takes. And we need to look out for them."

Tome utters an agreeable hum. "Heh. You're turning into quite the diplomat, Teruki-kun."

"Yes, I— oh dear." Tsubomi's nose has started bleeding again. Teruki offers the box of tissues they have on standby.

"S' going on there?" Tome asks, tinny bewilderment through the phone.

Teruki speaks for the other girl as she's got her head tipped back and her nose full of tissue paper. "A nosebleed. She reached into Mob-kun's mind to get him to calm down."

Tome gasps, starstruck, "Wow, really?"

Tsubomi wipes her face clean and says, still a little congested, "He's the one who calmed himself down, really. All I did was let him know his friends were around him for support. I don't have mind control or whatever."

"Still," Teru insists, "you got past his mental barriers even at his maximum strength. The fact that you were able to contact him at all is really impressive."

Tsubomi beams, shy but pleased, proud.

By the time their call ends, the fabric of the night is as black as tar and soft as lake water. Teruki sighs and thunks his head on the metal of the fire escape. "Jeez, I'm famished. There's a corner eatery where they sell killer gyudon, want some takeout?"

Tsubomi flashes an apologetic smile. "Tempting, but I don't have any money with me. And to leave Mob-kun alone is…"

"Consider this payment for saving me and everybody in a ten-block radius. You can stay here, I'll be fast." Teruki winks at her, his aura coiling around him with a flash, and her smile grows more genuine. He may have vowed not to abuse his powers anymore, but that doesn't mean he should rob himself of convenience.

Later, as they sit on the hallway floor beside his apartment, with Tsubomi's delight at the extra egg in her gyudon, Teruki comes to the sheepish realization that his penchant for showing off to pretty girls may have factored in there too.

"I wonder, Hanazawa-kun," Tsubomi says after a short, companionable quiet of concentrating on their meals, "did you bleaching your hair ever have anything to do with the color of your aura?"

Teruki mulls this over, and chuckles through his mouthful of beef. "Honestly? I don't know. I just wanted yet another reason to stand out in a crowd. Now that you've pointed it out… Yeah. Maybe." He sidles a teasing smirk at her. "Wanna dye your hair green, Takane-chan?"

To his pleasant surprise, Tsubomi grows both serious and excited, and she admits, "I've always wanted to color my hair. In highlights, at least."

"I can help with that, if you want. I bleach my own hair, it's not too hard to do."

Before their conversation can carry further, the door to Teruki's apartment swings open. Mob peers down at them, from a greater height since his feet haven't met the ground yet. His hair is still standing on end, but at least his aura is a muted mirage rather than a lighthouse now. An otherworldly sight, like a bolt from the blue that's been preserved in amber, something humans are not meant to behold for longer than necessary.

Tsubomi raises a hesitant hand bearing gyudon in a takeout container. "Mob-kun, please eat something."

Mob's eyes stir, voids filling with grim determination, and he speaks, still hoarse from crying: "Tsubomi-chan. Hanazawa-kun. Please help me. Please help me control the other me."

* * *

Tome can believe things that are true, things that aren't true, and things that no one knows if they're true or not. Her sister Chisato raised her on Star Trek and X-Files and quite possibly every piece of extraterrestrial pop fiction there is. The vastness of space causes others to shudder in fear and tread closer to the ground, but she could never stop looking up.

At sixteen and standing on a mountain peak with all her friends, she was ready to abscond with the knowledge that espers existed, that telepathy was real. It was a foot in the door of the transcendental, more than she'd ever dreamt of.

Except the spaceship descending to greet them kicked that door open completely, and the transcendental became the _divine_.

Tome was quiet, as they drove back home in the graveyard hours of the morning. She'd just shaken hands with an alien, _hugged_ an alien. She and everyone got to sit in their spaceship and talk with them, Tsubomi as mediator. Reality was somehow dimmed and yet also brighter than it had ever been.

A passing streetlight illuminated her friends in the rearview mirror, dogpiled and fast asleep. Beside her, Nee-san had an odd smile on her face, the one that meant she was finding a way to say something, and so Tome waited for it.

"You know, I never really believed in aliens."

It was too late in the evening, and too early in the day, for Tome to process this. She just let her eyebrows disappear into her hairline and her mouth fall open, and Nee-san huffed a muted laugh.

"Everything we watched, they were just something for us to bond over. But you latched onto the idea so fiercely. You have more faith in it than most people do in their entire lives about any one thing. You see the potential in everything, in everyone. And look." Nee-san glanced back at Tome's friends. "You got them into following you, because they believed in your belief. And it paid off. Beings from another world came, because of you." She laughed again, except the laugh morphed into a sniffle. "You're such an amazing little shit."

Tome was struck dumb for a minute. Then she winched out of her seatbelt to smush into Nee-san, validation and victory and vaguely hysterical joy and everything else crowded inside her.

Here and now at nineteen years old, she still believes. And she believes in Reigen.

She doesn't _believe_ Reigen, per se; every other breath he takes is to lie about how much sleep he got, when he last ate a decent meal, whose cigarettes are in his dorm room. She believes in him as a person, as someone who's going through a lot but will come through alright.

They're at an internet café typing up an assignment for the GE class that they're both in when Reigen asks her, in an offhanded way like he's commenting on the rainy afternoon outside, "Have you heard from Mob?"

Tome delivers her most deadpan face, though it falters due to the bags under Reigen's eyes, the pallor of his cheeks. "He's doing okay," she answers in a careful tone. "He talks about the recipes he has to practice for school on Friendster."

Reigen tilts a brow, genuinely amused for a moment. "He has a Friendster?"

"I think Teru-kun forced him into making it."

Reigen laughs along, and then his smile drops like it's been shoved out of a plane, punching through clouds. He straightens and turns back to his computer screen, and says, "I should contact him."

Something in Tome's chest clenches, aches. "Why are you using the word 'should' and not 'want?'"

For once, Reigen has no clever reply to barrel-roll out of this. Tome presses on. "Reigen… Mob isn't your responsibility. He's keeping himself in check now, okay? You still need time."

It's the wrong thing to say, because Reigen shrugs and glances to the side with a pasted-on half-smile. "Looking back on it now I was just overreacting, and it didn't go as worse as it could've. I have to—"

Tome slams her fingers into his shoulders and yanks him around in his chair to face her. "Reigen Arataka," she hisses with contempt, "will you please stop _doing_ this to yourself."

Reigen grimaces, shoves her hands off as though they scald him. "Doing what."

"Treating yourself like your feelings don't matter, like _you_ don't matter. Putting everyone but yourself first and giving them your all until there's nothing left for you." Tome angles her face until he finally meets her gaze, and says, "What you went through can't be compared to how it could've been 'worse.' You deal with it at your own pace. You aren't overreacting. And I swear if you fight me on this I will spam you with chain mail until we _die_ , you sanctimonious asshole."

Reigen's subsequent laughing fit sounds more like sobs.

Over the year, the two of them get shoehorned as an annoying couple, because of the time Tome had to cuss out a girl who tried to take a very drunk Reigen home from a house party. Then they're accused of being a faggot and a dyke. Neither of them couldn't give less of a shit what anyone else thinks.

Because Reigen translates Tome's comments into English on her alien theory messaging boards. Reigen fusses over every bruise on her shin or scratch on her arm from her being an uncoordinated mess who bumps into everything. Reigen buys her snacks on the worst days of her period. Reigen is her family. And Tome is Reigen's family too. She reminds him to slow down, to breathe, to take care of himself as much as he does for others.

Tsubomi also becomes a closer friend, and the three of them work around their different time schedules due to being in different colleges at their university. They haunt convenience stores, libraries, cafés together.

Teru drops by a lot too, coming every few weeks to pick up Tsubomi, and they take a day to meet with Mob.

Nobody talks about that in front of Reigen.

Inch by painstaking inch, Reigen builds himself anew. He gains back some weight, cuts down from smoking a whole pack of cigs a day. He walks and talks like his skin finally fits him, transmogrifying his self-destruction into self-determination. Tome's forever torn between irascible annoyance at his antics, and secret relief and pride at his confidence.

Sometimes Reigen will spin an exaggerated yarn about adventures in middle school and he'll go "and this was at Mob's house," or "so Mob had to lift my bike out" without thinking, and then clam up, friendly charisma evaporating. Sometimes he'll recover quick and carry on regaling who he's talking to with the tale in question.

Sometimes Tome sees that Reigen's fired a message to Mob on Friendster and that Mob's replied, all their exchanges awkward and stilted and very brief. Both Reigen and Mob seem to have realized how deep their codependency metastasized, for years. Carving it out of themselves until they're no better than acquaintances who never really knew each other.

Nobody talks about that, either.

They're holed up in Reigen's mother's apartment the weekend before the new academic year starts, marathoning old Batman movies, when Teru asks, "Are we friends?"

Tome would react to that, and quite loudly, except Reigen is issuing soft snores with his head on her shoulder. Tsubomi's the one who asks, in the dulcet tones everybody gets at two in the morning, "Can you elaborate, Hanazawa-kun?"

"We talk to each other about updates on Kageyama-kun and Reigen-kun. We're really more their mutual friends than we are each other's. But." Teru pauses, and Tome watches the technicolor lights of the TV bounce off his face, can pinpoint the exact moment he becomes flustered. "I like when we get to spend time together like this, and talk about things we've read, watched, and what happened in our classes. So…" He sighs. "I don't know where I was going with this, sorry."

Tome murmurs, drowning out Catwoman's monologue, "For someone so smart, you're so dumb. Of course we're friends. We're friends for each other, not just for being Mob and Reigen's friends. Our lives don't revolve around those two, y'know." As if sensing that he's being mocked, Reigen mutters in his sleep and shifts his head off, freeing Tome's shoulder.

Teru blinks and tilts his head to the side just as the TV goes white from an explosion scene. It's a perfect moment, his young-wolf face in profile; a lightning flash, photograph, still life. Then the moment ends and he grins, a rumpled bleached-blonde boy again, and says, "Heh. You're right. You're pretty smart too, Tome-sam."

Tome flaps a hand at him and tries to concentrate on Batman's horrible acting to drown out the odd feeling in her stomach. Beside her, Tsubomi utters a small, thoughtful noise. To Tome's astonishment, the other girl asks, in a tentative voice, "I… I hope you feel the same way about our friendship too, Tome-san?"

"What? Dude, of course!" She slings an arm around Tsubomi's shoulders. "I'm forever indebted to you for helping us meet aliens. You're the coolest to me, even more than Mob, that dummy. The _coolest_."

Tsubomi always blushes a little when Tome gets affectionate with her, and Tome's chalked it up to the other girl's easily embarrassed nature. But now Tsubomi's face is a glowing coal, so hot Tome can almost imagine steam rising from it like in anime. She's staring very hard at her fists clenched in her lap, and Tome becomes hyperaware of the fact that they're both in thin sleepwear. And the side of her chest is squished to Tsubomi's, which is larger. And softer. And she smells so nice. And oh gods she's in the same room as a _mind reader_ —

Tome cleaves herself from the other girl so fast and hard she jostles Reigen, who kicks his leg up in a fuzzed yelp. Trying to look everywhere but at Tsubomi, Tome's eyes land on Teru, who has the biggest shit-eating grin on his face as he looks right back, a soft flush of his own filling his cheeks. "See?" he says. "Told ya she likes us."

* * *

Tsubomi has never found Mob's powers as incomprehensible, as something to fear. Not even since the very first day they met, when they didn't yet know each other's names. She could never understand why that was until now, after cleaning out her room as distraction from the thoughts of the city crashing itself against her like tumultuous ebbs and flows of the tide.

Tucked in a hidden shoebox, along with other treasures from early childhood, is an unkempt photograph. She's three or four years old in it, perched on her great-grandmother's lap, the both of them giggling as stuffed toy animals dance on air over their heads.

The sparse memories that flood into her are very faint. Pinching the soft pruny lines on Baba's skin. Getting floated around in the clothes basket. The smoker-rough but fond voice threatening to steal Tsubomi from her parents so she can be doted on forever.

She can't remember how she felt or reacted when she learned that Baba died. The grief arrives seventeen years too late.

Teru's come to pick her up in his new car, a sensible Mazda. Even with her earplugs in to narrow her focus, Tsubomi catches flashes of his pride at having acquired his driver's license in less than a year. It's a lovely morning all around, over-starched blue flooded with sun, and she's happy for him, she really is, trying to show it best she can. But they've known each other for six years, and grown closer in the last two, and Teru coaxes her into talking about what happened.

Tsubomi lets the sensation of wind streaming through the open windows buoy her as she talks. When she's done, Teru muses, "Y'know, maybe being an esper might be hereditary. Like a recessive gene that can skip generations." He turns his head a bit towards her and says, softer, "I'm sure she'd be proud of who you've grown up to be."

"Thank you, Teru-kun," Tsubomi says, leaning into the comfort. She hides a smile when the tips of Teru's ears go pink at the use of his first name. It's been a month now since the night in Reigen's apartment when their soap-opera situation had unraveled. Tsubomi has liked Tome for a long time now, but developed feelings for Teru as well, over the course of them helping Mob together. Tsubomi had wasted whole nights waiting for the freaked-out shine to wear from it, and become weird or disgusting, as it's supposed to be, but it never did.

The likelihood of Tome and Teru both being in the exact same boat as her was slimmer than snowfall in June, and yet here they are. She's giddy with it, and still kind of freaked out, a perpetual overlay of freaked out like newspaper around flimsy valuables.

Reigen's been thinking up increasingly elaborate nicknames for their relationship. T-cubed. Triple T's. Terrible Trio of Trouble. He's been nothing but supportive, which has been wonderful. So is Mob, since she messaged him about what transpired. She knows all too well what society thinks about people like them, but to be blessed with intimacy and support, even just from a handful of people, means the world to her.

Mob's already on the sidewalk when they pull up by the Kageyamas' house. "What a nice car, Hanazawa-kun," he says as he accordions himself into the backseat, smiling at both of them. "Couldn't wait to show it off to Tsubomi-chan?"

Teru splutters and Tsubomi can't stop laughing even if she tried. They They banter all through the drive to their practice grounds; as usual, sidestepping any mention of Reigen, like a seat at the dinner table that you know should be filled, but finding no one there.

They've always tried to find open areas to do this. Here on the outskirts of their city, they favor the condemned buildings, the abandoned car park pockmarked with potholes between them.

It doesn't take long for Mob to explode; he's been this way for years, constantly a few degrees away from his tipping point. A stone dropped into the still lake of his being, and he disappears into furious rippling black-blue, his eyes molten-white chips of steel. The transition still jars Tsubomi, no matter how much she witnesses it.

Teru braces beside her, and she does too. Sometimes Mob will attack them in blind fury, and sometimes he'll try to shave the whole city block off the earth. Those scenarios she can take. But not the ones where Mob tries to hurt himself, punish himself.

For the first time, Mob does none of those things. Instead, he turns to them with the widest grin Tsubomi has ever seen him make, his everbright eyes almost disappearing from the force of it. "I'm happy for you, Tsubomi, Hanazawa. And for Tome too, of course. I hope we can all hang out together soon."

Teru's jaw has dropped wide enough to start catching flies. Tsubomi isn't any better, though she rushes to say, infected by Mob's joy, "Of course, Mob-kun! Thank you so much, I'm so glad. We all are."

Mob nods, appeased, his floating hair moving with him. "And I'll make Arataka happy too."

The miracle evaporates, and Tsubomi flinches. "Oh, Mob-kun…" She shouldn't cushion this blow and so she doesn't. "Reigen-kun is still coping with what's happened, it's… not a good time."

Mob's fluorescent grin twitches, growing brittle. "But we're talking again. He wants me back. Of course we'll be happy."

"Kageyama-kun." Teru's voice is hard enough to crack diamond. "He's afraid for you. Afraid _of_ you. And he hates himself for it, like it's his fault for being traumatized by all the times you nearly killed him."

That stops Mob dead in his tracks. "No. N-no. That wasn't me." His face curdles. "But it _was_ you. It was _us_. It was _me_. No! _I'm sorry!_ " The energy around him cracks, an inverse lightning storm, and he curls on himself, sobbing one minute and incoherent yelling the next. Teru throws up a barrier around himself and Tsubomi, and they can't do anything but wait.

By the time it's over, the crater that Mob's made around himself is deep enough to fit a ten-wheeler truck.

They help him back to the car and begin the drive home. Teru glances in the rearview mirror at Tsubomi, curled around Mob's limp body in a protective embrace. She hears him think, very deliberately, _tell him. he has to know_.

She sighs, and brushes against Mob's mind gently, letting her presence be known. Mob's thoughts are a maelstrom, and she breaks through it. _mob-kun, you have to understand…all your actions are yours. though there's a ridiculously strong shield around your mind at the height of your powers, what little i can sense is still you. more uninhibited and arrogant and intense, but still you._

Unexpectedly, Mob gives a slow nod. _i know. i've been denying it because i don't want it to be. i hurt arataka-kun. i_ assaulted _him._

 _because you got carried away. the power flowing through you, combined with the emotions you keep suppressing—_

 _i just don't want to feel anything anymore._ Mob releases a shuddery breath. _i keep hurting everyone._

 _mob. listen to me._ Tsubomi shakes him a little until he meets her gaze. _your emotions aren't what hurt people, your actions are. whenever my father treats my mother like trash i so badly want to hit him, but i don't act on it. i let go of my anger another way. you can't control your emotions. that's what you thought you could do but you can't, and you shouldn't. don't deny it. just learn how to live with it._

Mob's silent inside himself, contemplating. _okay. thank you. thank you, tsubomi-chan._

She smiles and speaks low enough that only Mob can hear, because this needs to be said aloud. "For the record? I know your feelings for Reigen-kun aren't what hurt him. It's _how_ you told him."

"What makes you say that?" Mob murmurs, puzzled.

"I don't need to be a telepath to know how much he feels about you, despite everything."

Mob doesn't reply to that. Even his mind is in murky, unreadable undercurrents.

It's already nightfall when they drop Mob off, low-hanging moon with a bite taken out of it. As they're driving over to Tome's house for a promised dinner, Teru reaches across the driver's seat to grasp her hand. She laces her fingers with his just as a scream rips her head open.

Teru's posing worried questions at her but she doesn't hear him, locking onto the young girl's futile cries for help, a hand over her mouth. She's an esper, her aura so new and unsettled pale. as she's dragged away by someone.

Another esper, with a malevolent red aura.

She yells at Teru, " _Drive_ ," projecting the jumble of images into his mind, and he guns down into the alleyway a few blocks over.

Tsubomi leaps out of the car, and she can see the girl, only ten, pigtails lashing about her as she weeps. The esper has seen them approach, and he starts running but Teru reaches out, freezes him in place. He curses and throws out projectiles of energy at them.

Tsubomi doesn't care, stampeding towards him. She has no telekinesis or other combative abilities, and even the barriers she can put up are weak and porous. What she does have is six years of tennis, coordination, and upper-body strength.

She ducks and swerves around the red projectiles, and by the time the man realizes his technique's not working she's close enough to sucker-punch him in the jaw. He yips, dropping his victim, and Tsubomi scoops her up just before Teru slams the man into a wall.

The girl won't stop crying, shaking with relief, and Tsubomi tucks the girl's face into her neck so she doesn't see the vengeful smile Tsubomi's wearing as Teru squeezes his powers around the man a little harsher than necessary. She idly notes that there's an old ragged scar bisecting his mouth.

 _who are you and what the fuck were you planning to do with her?_ Tsubomi relishes the way the scum freezes in his angry tirade upon hearing her in his mind. _yes, we're espers like you. so talk quickly, and don't lie. i'll know._

"I-I wasn't gonna do molest her or anything!" He's manic with desperation now. "I work for a noble organization called Claw. We're going to put the world in its proper order!"

* * *

 **yes, tome, teru, and tsubomi are poly. hehe.**


	10. rheology

rheology (n.): the study of the deformation and flow of matter.

Mob's routine goes like this:

Wake up at dawn. Appreciate the sunrise from his little window. Prepare for work. Arrive at Café Arabelle's a good two hours before anybody else. Take a minute to tidy up and arrange everything (with the store's curtains drawn so floating objects and eerie glows aren't visible to the busy street outside).

All this is done so he can focus on trying new recipes and improving old ones. His bosses let him have free rein of the kitchen, and the five wait staff are unquestioning of, and grateful for, their ease in labor.

Mob pours boiling water onto the butterfly pea flowers he picked and dried from the vines growing wild by his boarding house. A curl of childish delight suffuses him, like the blue essence that tinges the water almost immediately. The videos on the internet weren't enough to prepare him for how beautiful it is to behold, especially in this tender morning light. Much as he'd love to perch his face in his hands and watch this, he still has a chiffon batter to mix. He plans to use some of the butterfly pea water as a natural food dye in the chiffon roll, and the rest will go to making simple teas and juices. He's excited to see people's faces when they squeeze lemon into their beverages and find them turned magenta from the chemical reaction. And to hear that they like how everything tastes, of course.

Arabelle-san loves to jest that he's surpassed her completely, but he knows that's not true. She's matchless in age, talent, and determination; to have come here from the Philippines as a domestic worker, and yet finding time and saving up for licenses to get her own place. She also loves to jest that had Sumire-san not met her and fallen madly in love, this café would've never existed. But Mob also knows that's not true.

He hopes that Sumire-san can stop by today and eat what he's concocted. After she has some of Arabelle-san's own cooking, of course.

Mob does his best to not use his powers when baking, unless there's a rushed catering order that he can volunteer for as long as he gets the kitchen to himself. The concentration calms him as much as a nice afternoon jog does, as the café patrons' positive feedback on something he made with his own honed skills. Sumire-san, being the numbers cruncher, keeps trying to give him a raise for all his work and overtime, but he doesn't accept it, **because you don't deserve it, you don't deserve this job, you'd have never even passed college if not for cheating with your powers at the slightest sign of trouble, you're** worthless **without powers and you hide it from everyone here because you like that they can look at you and not see all your stupid dangerous mistakes—**

Mob's exhale trembles out of him. He paces the kitchen floor, debating if it would be weird to drop to the floor and do push-ups until he can't hear himself think, when his phone pings. It's a text from Tsubomi.

'hey, mob-kun! what u up to?'

'Good morning, Tsubomi-chan. Experimenting with chiffon cake.'

'omg you're at work already?'

'Yeah, but we don't open til 11. I just get here early.'

'haha ok ok'

'Why do you ask?'

She doesn't reply. Mob puzzles over this conversation that's been struck up out of nowhere. He and Tsubomi haven't called or texted each other in months. The last time they even saw each other in person was some time after Mob's graduation ceremony, for a belated celebration. Both she and Hanazawa have been quite busy these past two years, and not even Tome knows what they're doing when they're not at work or with her **and Arataka**.

Distracted enough by this new development, Mob's about to turn back to his batter mixing when his phone pings again.

'hey, check your entrance.'

Excited anticipation builds in his gut as he hurries to the shopfront, and sure enough Tsubomi stands there. There's a wide streak of dark green in her hair, and a roundness to her cheeks and body, but Mob could recognize her even blindfolded. Her aura pulses brighter than ever.

"Tsubomi-chan!" he can't help exclaiming, gathering her into a hug that actually lifts her off her feet. She bursts into delighting laughter, trying to return the embrace.

"My goodness, Mob-kun! You're a lot bulkier than I remember, and taller too. You can give Musashi-san a run for his money now. I bet droves of people fawn over you."

Mob did indeed get a very belated growth spurt that he's still…processing, mentally. He still remembers how flustered he was when Arabelle-san pointed out that half their customers come over for him more than the pastries. He's getting flustered again right now, and Tsubomi giggles when his cheeks go pink. "Ahh, but that right there, that's the Mob I know."

With a shrug and a sheepish grin, Mob acquiesces. "You look different too. You look good."

Tsubomi utters a dry, near-weary chuckle. "That's a kind way of saying I gained a few kilos."

"It doesn't have to be kind or anything," Mob says, firm and gentle. "You _do_ look good. And as long as you're okay, it's always okay."

Tsubomi's mood picks up again. "Thank you, Mob-kun."

Mob gets her to sit at a table by the window closest to the park outside. He draws some curtains so Tsubomi can view the seaside murals painted on the walls, the beached-themed décor that toes the line between tasteful and tacky. "This place is a bit small but it's so homey. I'm so glad you like it here, Mob-kun," she calls out as he gets her a sakura cupcake from the display refrigerator by the counter.

"Me too," he says, coming back with the cupcake and the butterfly pea tea. He grins when Tsubomi is wowed by the chemical reaction with lemons and snaps a quick picture. "How have you been?"

They chat about the slog of Tsubomi's HR job that she somehow landed despite having a history degree; Hanazawa teaching at one of the private schools back home; Tsubomi's father getting counseling to be better for her and her mother. Mob has little to tell, though Tsubomi is elated to know that a middle-aged lesbian couple has taken him under their wing. The years apart slough off of them until it's inconsequential. They even take to telepathic conversations again, whenever Tsubomi's having bites or sips of her meal and still wants to keep talking.

However, Mob can't help but notice— _you're avoiding bringing up tome-san._

 _well. she and reigen-kun are quitting their jobs_.

The sting of talking about Reigen isn't as bad as it used to be six years ago. It helps that they haven't contacted each other in a while now. But it still aches like a phantom limb, like shrapnel in Mob's bones. Tsubomi reads his thoughts, he can tell by how her mouth twists, but she gracefully doesn't dwell on it. She continues, _they've saved up enough and taken out loans. they wanna run their own business._

 _really? what business?_

 _paranormal consultants, is their working title. i told them they should be more specific, hehe._

 _oh, they're still…_

 _yeah._

Mob can understand why Tome would still be so invested in supernatural affairs, given how her unwavering passion for aliens was validated by their expedition up the mountain. But for Reigen, who's already dealt with so much, **with you, he's had to deal with** you **, your fucking mess of a headspace, and paid the price in blood and sweat and tears and scars, all your fault, you worthless** —

" _Mob-kun_ ," Tsubomi says aloud, slicing into his mind with two searing bursts. Then, softer: "Mob-kun, please, it's okay…"

After staring at the wood of their tabletop and exhaling in measured, thoughtless moments, Mob lifts his head to look Tsubomi in the eye. "I know. Please tell them I'm glad they're doing something they want," he says, and means it.

Tsubomi pauses, then gives a slow nod. "I know you are. They'll be glad to hear this but. There's something." She sighs, and some invisible weight lands onto her shoulders, making her hang her head. She speaks into Mob's mind. _teru and i have been…hiding this from you, mob-kun. even tome doesn't have the whole picture, and reigen-kun doesn't know anything at all._

She leans in and meets Mob's eyes. _there's a group called Claw. a cult, a terrorist cell, i don't know what to call them. but they're espers. we didn't take them seriously at first… we thought they were just some crackpot group of ten to twenty. but more and more of them turn up each year. all over the country, more kids get abducted, more people disappear. they're definitely up to no good._ Her hands come up to dig the palms into her eye sockets, and Mob notes with alarm that they're trembling.

 _ever since we graduated teru and i have been trying to get to the bottom of this. that's why i'm here in buffet city, following a lead—aside from seeing you, of course. but we can't find the snake's head, no matter how hard we try. this person is very good at maintaining their fictive state, none of the underlings have a name, or even an alias for them. and keeping watch is… there's so much more evil in the world that just finds its way to me, mob-kun…_

A barrage of images flicker: a mother creeping into her young son's bed at night, a politician stealing billions from his employees, a teenager putting tacks into the food of their neighbors' cat — it stops when Tsubomi gasps and steels herself. "Oh, I—I'm so sorry, Mob-kub, you shouldn't have had to see—I'm sorry."

"Please don't be," Mob says, unnerved himself, but more worried for his friend. Tsubomi must be so overwhelmed from having to do this for so long. Hanazawa may be supportive and reassuring, but she faces all these terrors down firsthand, alone. Again, she senses Mob's sentiments, and she manages a grateful smile, thin as rice paper.

"Well. Now that you know all this." Tsubomi hesitates, then straightens in her seat. "We'd like to ask you to come home, to Seasoning City. If you can."

Earlier this month, Mob's mother had asked him the same thing. Ritsu misses you so much, she'd said on the phone, and with your experience anyone here would be lucky to hire you. With this added threat of a shadow organization, Mob now has more reasons to do so. Except. Reigen. Wrenching open every door that's been nailed shut, knowing full well he may never be welcome.

"I. I don't know," is what he says instead. "I'll have to think about it. I'm sorry."

"It was a request, not a demand, Mob-kun," Tsubomi reminds him, reassuring. "Of course it's okay to say no. Just be careful. Be on the lookout in this city, then tell me and Teru if anything happens so we can help you. You won't have to do it alone."

"And you won't have to either. I'm glad to help. You could've told me all this sooner."

Once again, Tsubomi's words dance around eggshells. "You weren't in a good place a few years ago. You're better now, but… I know you've been avoiding using your powers around others, and I get why."

Long after Tsubomi leaves, Mob ponders on what he wants. He wants to rebuild ties with Ritsu, who he only sees a few times a year. He wants people he doesn't have to hold at arm's length for both their sake and his own. He wants to protect his family, his friends. He has a life waiting for him.

It doesn't have to have Reigen in it.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: ?%**

Because the café is closed tomorrow, as it is every Sunday, Mob decides to walk instead of taking the train. It's going dark out, the sky bruised, stars emerging carefully, random and cold. He's been studying them so intently he almost misses his phone going off in his pocket. There's a text from an unfamiliar number. He nearly drops the phone down the sewer beside him when he reads it.

'Hey mob-kun. Arataka here, got ur number from tome. May I call u?'

Mob presses his fingers to his eyes until everything blossoms red-black, tries to breathe. Perhaps the conversation with Tsubomi had unmoored him, and this is the finishing blow. He's lost his safe harbor and he's back where he was six years ago, drifting on a vast ocean with no compass to point him north. How odd that what he felt when he lost Reigen rings just the same as when Reigen's drifting back to him.

After stewing for a minute or two, Mob calls the number himself. It rings for a few endless moments and he loses his nerve. He's about to hang up when there's a click, some shuffling and coughing and muttering, and then:

"Mob?"

Reigen's voice is rougher than Mob remembers, buried way down in the graveyard of his throat. Caught off guard like he hadn't expected Mob to reply, much less initiate a call. "Hello." Mob manages to say, using formal address.

"Jeez, quit that. Uh. How are you."

"I'm. Doing okay."

"Good! That's good. Really good." This conversation is moving like there's snapped pieces of wood where its bones used to be, where they used to talk for hours without stopping, mostly on Reigen's end. Their honeyed past superimposed over this harrowing present, and Mob can't separate the two **because whose fucking fault is it that this is all that's left—**

Reigen speaks into the silence, swatting Mob's invasive thoughts away. "Takane-chan told you about the business Tome-san and I are starting?"

Mob replies, a little too quickly, too eagerly, "Yes! Yes. I think it's a good idea, if it's what you want to do."

"It is." Reigen seems more relaxed now that there's a topic to exhaust, thawing out and easing in. "With my business degree and Tome-san's computer programming, I think we can get by. All we need is an actual esper."

Mob can't resist quipping, "Ah yes, that might be necessary if you're gonna deal with supernatural stuff."

Reigen barks a laugh, surprised and. Pleased. "Is. Was that a joke? Did you just crack an actual joke?"

"Oh yep. Had to take an elective on it for my last semester."

Reigen laughs again, short gunburst that's so different from the raucous cackles he used to utter as he'd slap his knee **and what makes you think he'd ever laugh like that again around you, because of you, what makes you think you deserve it** —

"Hey, you still there? The signal not good? Can't hear—"

Mob realizes the phone has drifted from his ear, as his arm and other extremities grow limp, far away. He hastily tucks it back. "I'm still here." The words are too weighted, precarious on these brittle balancing scales that they're on.

"Okay." Reigen pauses again, and Mob knows by instinct that he's fixing to say something. "Your mom wants you to come back."

"H-how did you know?" Mob blurts out, too surprised for tact.

Reigen huffs, static crackling through the receiver. "She…ah. I guess she didn't tell you, not that I blame her. We see each other now and then. She mothers me a lot, probably as substitution for you. She mentioned how she's asked you to come home, and that you were still thinking about it." He breathes out again, like the words are concrete blocks on his lungs. "I just wanna say, if you want to come back, but you think I'm— Well. I'm telling you it's okay."

Mob really wishes that there was a bench nearby so he could sit. Reigen keeps throwing a wrench into his internal machine, and Mob doesn't know if he's breaking or winching together again. "You. You're doing it again, Arataka-kun," he somehow says. "Compromising. For me. Even if it's not what you want."

For an unbearably long moment, Reigen is silent. Then: "And who says I don't want you home?"

"Oh." The sidewalk blurs under his feet and Mob realizes his eyes and his voice are heavy with tears.

"Yeah. I'd like to be able to talk in person. Just…think about it, Shigeo." A fierce aching lance drives itself through Mob's ribs at the use of his first name. There's a scuffle on the other line, then Reigen says, gentle like they're kids in a sleepover again, "Goodnight."

Mob makes his way back to his boarding house on autopilot. He's dimly aware of the ground rumbling beneath his feet, the lamplights swaying drunk on their posts, buildings cowering. Wildflowers growing within seconds between cracks in the pavement. In fits and bursts, like a crescendo that never peaks. Mob doesn't know what's going on inside of him right now.

It's better once he's safe in his room, where he can sit on the floor and meditate and breathe.

Mob knows he should take a few more days to decide, but deep down he already knows what he wants. He wants to begin anew.

Even if he knows he doesn't deserve it.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: ?%**

Mob gets home just before Ritsu returns from school. Ritsu's eyes widen almost comically when he closes the front door and sees Mob emerge into the foyer. Mob's glad their parents kept silent about his arrival to better surprise Ritsu. He's ready to swing his little brother around, as he always does whenever he's back for holidays and Ritsu takes a running dive into his arms.

Today, however, Ritsu doesn't do that, perhaps because he's trying to be more mature. He walks at a controlled pace towards Mob, then faster like he can't help it anymore. When they embrace Ritsu almost comes up to Mob's chest now.

"Hi, Nii-san," Ritsu speaks into Mob's chest. Mob chuckles and stoops a bit to nuzzle his face against Ritsu's head, the tufts of hair sticking out every which unruly way tickling his nose.

Their parents beam at both of them from the kitchen where they're preparing an unreasonable amount of dishes, as they always do whenever Mob is here. "Go get changed for dinner, boys," their mother calls.

As they go up the stairs, the two chat about Ritsu's time at school: stellar as always, both at grades and sports. Mob is hit with an unbearably large rush of pride. "I'm just in time for your birthday next week," he tells Ritsu. "I can't believe you're turning ten already. Mom and I will bake anything you want!"

Ritsu grins wide, bouncing on the balls of his feet, probably thinking up every kind of American sweet treat. He spots the luggage sitting in their hallway. "All your things are here… are you moving back?" He's so perceptive, so smart.

"Yeah, for now while I look for an apartment."

"Oh." Ritsu deflates, eyes downcast, picking at the hem of his T-shirt. "Then you'll leave. Again."

It's one of the worst things Mob's ever done, disappointing Ritsu. When he first left for college Ritsu had screamed bloody murder at the train station, and was inconsolable for weeks after. It didn't help that Mob was in a depressive numbing haze that took years to recover, that convinced him his family was better off without him. Even now an insidious voice whispers, **you could hurt him just like you hurt Arataka, worse than you hurt Arataka, you don't deserve to be near him you need to keep him safe you need to stay away you need to die** —

Mob falters, forms one hand into a careful fist to center himself. Each time he's left and then come back to visit, his little brother keeps on growing. Mob still catches himself looking for the stuffed toy fox that Ritsu used to bring everywhere, or moving to help Ritsu wash his hands in the sink, tie his shoes. He's already missed out on so much of Ritsu's life. He won't miss any more.

"I'll do my best to live really close, and visit every day," he says, focusing on Ritsu again. "It won't be fair on Mom and Dad for me to stay here, okay?"

"I know," Ritsu mumbles. His shoulders lift and he meets Mob's gaze, smile returning. "You can just use telekinesis to get here really fast!"

"And how do you know about that?"

"Hanazawa-san showed me. And Takane-san can read minds! You should use your powers like that more too."

Mob can't mask the dismay that hits him like a steamroller, and Ritsu frowns. "What, Nii-san?"

Not wanting to be overheard, **not wanting to shame your parents** , Mob nudges Ritsu into the younger brother's bedroom, shuts the door. "Please listen to me, Ritsu," he says. He hates the imploring tremor in his voice. He hates that he has to do this. But Ritsu's old enough that he should let go of his childish ideation of psychic powers. He has to know the truth.

"Do. Do you know why your Reigen-san doesn't come around as much anymore? Even when we're home for holidays or vacations?"

"Mom told me you fought."

"It's because I hurt him." His throat clogs but he keeps going. "More than once."

To his perplexity, Ritsu chews on these words then asks, "Did he hurt you first? Did he do something bad?"

"Eh?" Mob's fraught confession is derailed a bit now by this new concern. "Why would you say that you should just hurt someone if they do something bad?"

"My friends say so."

"That's. Those aren't good words to live by, Ritsu." Ritsu merely hikes a matter-of-fact shoulder up, and Mob sighs. "Nobody hurt me. I'm the one who's hurt people. I h-hurt your Reigen-san more than once." It feels like rolling a boulder uphill but he forces his voice steady, his eyes clear. "I didn't mean to. But it doesn't change the fact that I did. My powers are dangerous, Ritsu. I have better control now but… You need to take this seriously."

"You're just trying to scare me," Ritsu laughs after a fraught pause, but doubt already clouds his features.

"I'm not." Mob's conviction drains, and he makes to leave. He gets as far as closing the door shut behind him when he sighs, "Please remember that I won't ever try to hurt you."

Ritsu barely says two words during dinner, and then escapes to his room without bidding anyone goodnight. Mob doesn't blame him. They both have a lot to think about.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: ?%**

Mob follows the directions that Tome gave him, and ends up in a somewhat lackluster neighborhood, abandoned buildings sticking out like cavities between blocks of businesses and shops and apartments.

He's fortifying himself to face Reigen, has been ever since the phone call, his train ride home, his walk all the way here. His inner shirt is drenched in a manner that has nothing to do with the early-summer dusk, like he's fourteen again and wheezing through a hundred-meter dash. The panic and anxiety have thrummed so high for so long that he can't even parse his thoughts anymore. Just the odd sensation of his innards shuttling in and out of existence.

The building he finds is a nondescript two-story. He walks up the stairs past the car parts store and finds the door waiting at the end of the little hallway already sat ajar. Boxes hold it open, but he still knocks before peeking his head in.

There are some bare desks and couches pushed into one corner, more boxes, and Tome, standing amidst the controlled chaos. She's all angles and sharp planes, gone starker by the crisp cut of her business suit, hair long enough that it's in a bun. She looks more grown up than Mob will ever feel his whole hoodie-and-jeans life. "Mob-kun," she says, not greeting so much as judging, eyes skinny little slits of analysis.

Mob withers under that gaze. He knows that Tome is rather cold towards him, has always been ever since college **in the aftermath of you fucking up.**

Tome snorts. "Get in here, you lug." Mob does so, and lets her scrutinize him a bit more. In no time at all she diffuses the tension with a quick one-armed hug and a sincerely delivered "Nice to see you again."

"You too, Tome-san," Mob replies, his relief immense.

Then she reminds him of his harsh, imminent future by saying, "He's on the roof. Go get that conversation out of the way so I can decide whether to be nicer to you." Her smile errs on the side of too many teeth.

From the outside looking in, Mob is the lamb and Tome is the slaughter. But he knows that underneath the aggression is a true fear of the hand grenade that is Mob's powers. She fears for herself, for Reigen, for this entire city. Understandably so.

Mob understands but it doesn't lessen the gaping wound it wrests back open in him, splitting the seams of old scar tissue.

The door to the building's roof is also left ajar, and Mob wonders with no small amount of paranoia if it's a defense mechanism on everyone's part, so they can hear him approach. Nonetheless, his own skittish feelings bring him to tread as light as possible on the stairs. He smells the smoke, before anything else. And through the thin sliver to the outside he sees Reigen in person for the first time in nearly six years.

Reigen's also in a business suit, like Tome, but more bedraggled, jacket on his arm and tie loosened and shirt untucked. He looks every bit the tired, average salaryman Mob could bump into on the street, except nothing else about him is average at all. Reigen's speaking English in a polished-enough accent to someone on the phone. Mob gets snatches of the simpler words, _mom_ and _no_ and _please_ _rest_ and _call later_. Reigen hangs up and draws a long breath from his cigarette. Mob feels like some odd voyeur, a lump growing in his throat as Reigen tilts his head back for a smoke ring or two. He's about to retreat and wait downstairs when he hears, unmistakably addressed to no one but him, "Hey, get up here."

Of course Reigen sensed Mob's presence. He's always been too observant; **nosy, according to Tome or Hanazawa**. Mob has no choice but to surface under this innocuous sky. He keeps his eyes down, not ready to face Reigen head on yet. In his periphery, Reigen snuffs out the cigarette stub against the safety railing he's leaned on, cherry embers flecking off.

"Hey," Reigen says, addressing Mob's feet.

"H-hi," Mob tells the space by Reigen's hip. This is worse than talking on the phone, when the silences have no point to them. But his curiosity and concern win over, and he says, as neutral as possible, "You're smoking."

"Sure am."

"Didn't you used to hate—"

"Eh, I used to hate a lot of things." Reigen starts walking towards him, and Mob can't help looking up into Reigen's face. He finds Reigen looking right back, giving him a brief once-over as he comes to a stop. "Gods you're taller than me," he says after a pause, amusement coloring his tone.

Mob tests a cellophane-thin smile. Leave it to Reigen to be dismayed about that, first and foremost. "Your height might've something to do with these." He motions to the cigarette pack sticking out of Reigen's pocket, already half-empty.

Reigen shrugs. "Maybe. I'm already cutting back, anyways. For Tome-san."

Mob doesn't know what happens. It might be the setting sun tinting Reigen's hair, the wearily broken lines of his shoulders. His jaded, false grin, putting on a brave face in front of the person who's hurt him too many times. Mob starts trembling too much to stay upright. He falls to his knees, uncaring of the biting impact of concrete, and he curls forward, not a respecting bow so much as a grovel. His voice a piece of raw, bloody meat lodged in his mouth as he starts to say, "Arataka—"

"For fuck's sake, get _up_ , Mob." Reigen sounds shell-shocked, horrified, panicked. Not quite how Mob was expecting him to react. "Please get up, stop that right now."

Mob does, slowly, eventually. He takes to dusting off his pants so he doesn't have to look at Reigen's face again. He's still trembling. So are his words when he finally gets to the core of what he needs to say: "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

Mob's too unsteady to be taken aback by how flippant Reigen is. "Everything. All of it. I'm so so—"

"If you say 'sorry' word one more time I'm gonna get seriously pissed off, man." Mob blinks away the dew in his eyes from how surprised he is, and he dares a peek at Reigen. The other man is rubbing his temples like a migraine is brewing. "I don't want you groveling," he sighs, the heat in his voice gone. "I don't need that."

Mob doesn't know what to say. This isn't how he expected this would go. Reigen seems to be in the same boat, walking back until he can grasp the safety railing again, looking out at their city. With his back turned, Reigen starts talking, and it's both easier and worse on Mob, not seeing his face.

"I used to blame myself, more than I blamed you." Mob wants to interrupt, protest, but Reigen doesn't give any chance to. "Because all the bad stuff that ever happened, I tried not to pin them on you. I didn't want to accept that you were the one who did it, tried to think of you other personality as a fluke. But I was wrong, it _was_ you. A part of you still suffering. And because nobody accepted it, you tried to hide again. So I blamed myself, because maybe if I were a better friend I'd have realized this sooner and tried to help you cope so what you did to me would've never happened. But I didn't."

It's almost too much, Reigen's low, empty voice describing the lengths to which he makes excuses for Mob. But he continues, "So maybe my only fault was in being a bad friend. But even so, I still didn't deserve what happened to me. I know enough to know that. I know that it's not my fault either."

"Of course, Arataka-kun, I'm s—" Mob sputters, crushes his futile apology under his tongue like a bitter pill. "I know. That's why I want to take responsibility for my actions. Any punishment you want to go along with, I'll agree with it."

"Punish—hah." Reigen regards Mob over his shoulder, inscrutable slice of his eyes and nose. "This conversation alone seems to be punishment enough. You." He swallows thickly, something creeping around his words. "You didn't have to come here if you didn't want to see me at all."

" _No_. I did want to." Mob forces his eyes shut so no tears can form there, but it wracks his whole body all the same. "I missed—I _miss_ you."

"Me too," Reigen sort-of laughs, saturated with years of emotion, and Mob doesn't want to open his eyes. "Me too, so much. But you hurt me."

There it is. The outright admission, the brand on Mob's back for all to see. "I know," he says. It hurts to speak, to breathe, but he deserves it. "I have to live with it for the rest of my life. I won't ever forget it."

For minutes, eons, there's nothing but the wind around them, the jackhammer of Mob's pulse in his ears, the frost in his hands. Then Reigen says, clear and resolute as a lighthouse in a hurricane, "Look at me, Shigeo." Mob stands no chance when Reigen uses this voice, uses his name.

When his vision returns, blurred as it is, Reigen's face is centimeters away from his, gazing up at him as he says, "We can't forget it. But we can forgive. I've already forgiven you. Why not forgive yourself?"

Mob can feel his eyes widen and his mouth go slack. The sun has gone down at last but it doesn't matter. Reigen is lit up enough for the both of them. The tears standing in Mob's eyes spill over, scalding purifying fire. Reigen's no better, wiping at his nose with his sleeve as his shoulders shake with both chuckles and sobs.

"I'm d-doing my best to change," Mob says when he can trust his lungs again. "Tsubomi-chan and Hanazawa-kun help so much. I want to be better."

"I know. And I. I had to change too." Reigen tries to smirk when Mob blinks at him in surprise. "We both had to learn how to exist without needing each other. It. Wasn't healthy, just the two of us alone for so long. For more than half of our lives. I guess that's why you got all. Um. Kissing me and all that?"

Ah. Mob's never thought of that before, and he wonders if Reigen could be right. It's a neat explanation, wrapped up their problems in a bow, but it still doesn't explain what's taken root in the monstrously black soil of Mob's heart and refused to die even after years of drought. All the same, he sighs, "Yeah, I should've at least asked you properly first and talked about it… But what's done is done. That's in the past now."

Reigen's expression folds on itself for a second before he nods. "Yep. No going back." A ghostly yet genuine grin surfaces as he asks, "Say… If you don't have work yet, we have the position of 'backup psychic' open."

It's an odd segue in the conversation but Mob rolls with it, comforted by the gently bantering tone Reigen's taken on. "Is the pay any good?"

"Pretty good for a startup, yeah."

"Would part-time be okay?"

"Hmm, I'd have to ask the business partner. Get back to us in two weeks."

Mob huffs a laugh, too loud for the occasion, destructive-sounding like a thousand wine glasses breaking at once. He's back in Reigen's life, and he's not wasting this second chance. He'll be whatever Reigen needs him to be, a soldier worthy of demons, a friend, a brother.

Mob's motivations are different now, heavier than the pastel infatuation of six years ago. Not quite desire, or love; he's known both with a few people who have crossed his path. But this, he's never shared. This devotion.

The world could be falling apart all around him and everyone would think he's drowning in darkness because they don't see what he sees. Arataka, shining so bright that Mob is blinded to everything but him. His soul finds comfort in that light. He wants to make sure that light never fades. It's almost religious, extraordinary.

 **You smile when you should be crying.**

Yes. Exactly.

 **Progress towards Mob's Explosion: ?%**


	11. querencia

querencia (n.): a place where one desires to go in order to feel safer and stronger.

* * *

Reigen stares at the last smudge of fox-colored light on the spoiled plum sky out the window of their office. Their office. He and Tome may be sprawled on its floor with their shoes kicked off, surrounded by unpacked boxes, but it's theirs. The term rings so strange and adultlike and new. It's all so new, and new is exciting as well as terrifying. But this, slumped against a wall eating chips and snack cakes with Tome, this is a scene straight from their college days. The familiarity is comforting. Necessary.

Tome's hasn't brought up any questions ever since Mob left their building an hour ago, and Reigen's impressed that she's been processing it this long, instead of blowing her top off like he feared she would. But he must have jinxed it, because she catches his eye and asks:

"So. How was it? Seeing him again."

"Difficult to go through. But it was worth it."

'Difficult' is a dire understatement. It was painful, but the good kind of painful, like drawing poison that's been clogging his arteries for too long. From the way that Mob, older and wiser and gentler, had dropped to his knees on the rooftop, he knows it's like that for Mob too. Their reconciliation has made him feel so much lighter. Except the look on Tome's face makes clear that she doesn't believe him. "Look, I know you think I shouldn't be doing this but. He's changed. He's trying. And he was my best friend for so long. My only friend. Before you butted into the picture, of course." He adds that loving jab to try and put her at ease, but she still isn't swayed.

"Are you doing this just because of all those years together? Salvaging it, because it'd all go to waste? No matter how long you'd been friends, you don't owe anyone anything."

"It's not about. Salvaging or owing anyone, Tome. I want him back in my life."

Reigen didn't mean to phrase it this way and yet now that the words have tripped out of him, he knows this is true. He's been sitting on this for months, weighing pros and cons, wondering if this would be a good idea. The pragmatist in him knows they'd need an actual psychic on call, since Teru and Tsubomi are always busy with work and some secret project that they do their best to not talk about around him. Something about claws...eh, he respects their privacy. The optimist in him hopes that he and Mob can put the past behind them and repair their friendship.

The pessimist in him is already bracing for impact.

Tome must be too, and her indignation softens into the genuine worry he knows is underneath. "If. If he hurts—"

"I can look out for myself now, really. What d'you think I took all those self-defense classes for?" Reigen grins a little, remembering that his bi-weekly sparring session at the gym is coming up again soon.

"You know as well as I do that that won't work against Mob."

"Hey, I didn't take the classes just because of what Mob did. My life doesn't revolve around one bad day." Not anymore, he doesn't say aloud. "I took them to feel better about myself."

At long last, Tome relents. "Okay. I'm sorry. I know I must sound like a paranoid parent—"

"You are a paranoid parent," Reigen laughs as he stands and stretches, his ass gone numb from sitting on the cold floor. "What do your other halves— well, thirds— what do they think of all this?"

"Heh." Tome grins back; she can't help it, as long as she's talking about her partners. "Tsubomi's all for it, of course. Teru's a bit more reserved but. He's also on board."

"Yeah." Reigen takes a swig from his Coke can, his fear and joy mingling with the sweetness. "So. Do you wanna do the honors of grilling Mob for the official job interview?"

Tome's contented grin sharpens alarmingly drastic. "Oh hell yes."

"Please try not to torture him."

"No fuckin' promises."

* * *

Reigen knows, on an objective, factual level, that Mob is different now; that they're both different. And yet whenever he has to tilt his head up a little to properly meet Mob's eye, and sees him in a dress shirt, carrying his resume, keeping cool while Tome dissects him; Reigen can't help thinking that he really has grown up.

This 'interview' is more protocol than anything else; everyone knows that the job is already his if he wants it. However, that's being called into question now.

Of all the speedbumps Reigen knew he and Mob would encounter on their road to recovery, this is one he didn't foresee. Then again, Tome _did_ just ask Mob to keep quiet when clients who don't actually have supernatural problems consult them anyway.

Arms crossed and mouth thinned, Mob somehow towers over them, even when he's the only one seated in this office. "You'll be lying to them."

Tome flicks a terse glance at Reigen, and he sighs, comes up to bat. "Mob, People don't want the truth. They want a solution to their problems. You can't tell them that they're wrong. We have a lot of competition and if we want any hope of making sure we last more than a week, we need to do what we can."

"But still."

Reigen's both a little exasperated and a lot pleased that Mob's headstrong as ever when it comes to what's right or wrong. But morality, as Reigen's come to know all too well, isn't as cut and dried as it should be. "Think about it. For every dud case there could be someone in very real danger. We can't know if everyone who comes to us is plagued or just superstitious. So in order to save those who actually are in trouble, we need to save face with everyone else. Give our business a good reputation." He gestures grandly towards Mob; Tome would call it flapping his hand like a dead fish, but she knows nothing of grandeur. "You handle the real threats, leave the schmoozing to me."

Mob's eyes never leave Reigen's as he talks, steady and unremarkable, almost like his stone-faced childhood days. Yet the subtle tension in his shoulders loosens, and he sighs. "Yeah. I understand." He tilts his head towards his other potential boss. "What will you be doing, Tome-san?"

Tome isn't even phased. "Ehh, I'll be doing research… compiling evidence… photoshopping aliens and UFOs into pictures and videos."

It'd probably be bad form to laugh. Reigen settles for covering his face with his hand instead.

"...okay that is just straight up lying," Mob says after a beat too long.

"Hey, who said that's all I'd be doing?" Tome chortles.

"But you are."

Tome huffs and looks down at the phone in her hand with a wry grin. "If only we'd had cameras that day. Then I wouldn't need to do all this. Eh, I'd probably still be called a fraud." She shakes herself, and continues, "Look. People's belief is what's important. It doesn't matter how. We were all on that mountain. Extraterrestrials are real. My so-called proof may be fake but their existence isn't."

"That's. Quite the convoluted justification."

"Heh. Since when did you grow a spine?"

Mob's mouth quirks into a not-grin like he's not sure if he can wisecrack in return or not. "All the better to work for you, Tome-sensei, Reigen-sensei." He stands to bow at them, and Tome chuckles, nudges Reigen. They've gained their first, and probably only, employee. "I know I'll just be part-time here but. Um." Mob's tranquil demeanor ripples, shifting to discomfort. "I should disclose that once a month I'll be. With my psychiatrist."

"Psychiatrist?" Reigen parrots, too surprised to play it cool.

"Yeah. I've. Always thought about going, since college. I kept putting it off, and I didn't want my parents to have to pay, so." Mob hunches further into himself, like he's not sure he should be admitting to needing therapy.

The vulnerability in his face constricts Reigen's throat. "Hey," he says, trying not to come across like he's patronizing a spooked animal. "You don't have to explain yourself. This is good."

"That's really good, Mob," Tome agrees, "I'm glad you're taking that step. Where's the clinic? There's a work friend Reigen and I had back at our old job who really needs one, I think."

Reigen's glad Tome's letting Mob feel more at ease, treat it as any other normal doctor's appointment. Which it is. Which it should be.

He'd tried going to therapy himself, years ago, but it merely frustrated him. Per outlandishly expensive session, they'd just throw sleeping pills at him rather than help him process his experiences. His friends, especially Tome, were more helpful than all those shrinks he cycled through. He hopes the one Mob has found is cheaper, and a lot more competent.

Mob needs help that Reigen can't give him. He still has to remind himself that this doesn't make either of them bad friends to each other.

* * *

It's Teruki's idea to go to the new place Mob is working at for lunch, and Reigen agrees, happy to catch up with his friend, excited about the food, and curious about how Mob copes in a more stressful working environment.

"How ready are you about school coming back? And by ready, I mean not at all." Reigen snorts as they huddle under Teruki's giant rainbow umbrella. This hipster with bleached hair long enough to be in a ponytail being called 'sensei' by teens is too entertaining, especially considering that theirs is a private school with strict dress codes. Reigen has no idea how Teruki gets away with it.

"Hey now," Teruki chortles, "I like my job. The kids'll be the death of me, but at least there's never a dull moment."

People on the sidewalk try and fail to mask their ogling as they pass by, probably thinking that the two of them are a couple. Again. This happens so often that by this point they all just have a good laugh about it, while Tome and Tsubomi joke about him trying to steal their boyfriend.

"And how have things been with you guys?"

The Spirits and Paranormal Consultation Office has been open for a year now, and so far business is slow. Reigen says as much. "Sore muscles and superstitions, and one sad case of a frightened old woman who had no idea she was schizophrenic."

"Mm, Tome told me about that. She did her best to prove that no, aliens weren't trying to control the lady's mind through the telephone and TV and light bulbs in her house."

"Yeah… at least Mob's holding up okay. Just dealing with crank callers and making tea and easing into the idea of a three-piece suit."

"Man, I'll have to be there when it finally happens."

Mrs. Devon's is an English-themed pastry restaurant, a tasteful mural of the London skyway along its walls and a signature red phone booth in one corner that some teens are taking pictures in. Despite it being past rush hour for lunch, there are considerable queues at the counter. As they manage to snag a table, Reigen realizes Mob is one of the cashiers, smiling politely as he hands a blushing girl her bag of cookies. Most of the customers in line behind her are girls and women. Reigen can read, clear as day, that they're all very interested in Mob.

(Not that he can blame them. Mob's yellow uniform shirt and neat apron hug his torso in a flattering outline, his thick hair unruly and begging for a comb. There's powdered sugar smudged on one of his forearms.)

(Sweet.)

(The only word that fits him right now is 'sweet.')

Mob brightens when he spots them, taps a coworker on the shoulder and gets them to take over. The air of disappointment that sweeps over his queue is almost palpable as he leaves the counter, though it dissipates when they spot Teruki.

Someone whispers in awe behind Reigen, "Oh my gosh, another hot guy," and Reigen almost chokes on his service water.

"Hey, hey!" Teruki calls out as Mob draws near. "I thought you'd be, like, baking back there."

"I will, hopefully. You always start out in service. Waitstaff or cashier or dishwasher, that's how it goes. It's okay."

"You're doin' good! No stuttering or anything. And look at all those ladies fawning over you."

Mob's nose wrinkles. "Please don't. I had that problem at my last job too… My bosses wouldn't stop teasing me over it."

"Only you would see something like that as a problem," Teruki chortles, though it's warm.

Reigen recovers from his mishap and says, still coughing a little, "Well! It's great either way, Mob. What do you recommend? I'm starving."

"You're always starving, sensei," Mob fires back. He's gotten well into the habit of calling Reigen and Tome 'sensei,' especially around clients, which still makes Tome preen her feathers to no end. Mob draws out a notepad and gets their orders in a polite, professional tone, but there's an inextinguishable flicker of happiness in his eyes.

Reigen's glad to have helped put it there.

Things had been rocky and uncertain at first, but it's improving. Mob no longer shrinks when he has to talk with Reigen, or avoids being alone in the same room with him, or minimizes any physical contact. Slow and steady. They have time.

"I'm really happy you guys came here," Mob says later as he hands over the bill. Reigen's still too full and from cheesecake to grab said bill before Teruki slaps down payment and shoves it into Mob's grip, a winning smirk on his face. "Oi, I thought we were gonna split the bill, asshole!" He tries to fumble for his wallet. "At least let me give me a nice tip."

Mob raises an eyebrow ever so slightly. "How about you give me a raise instead."

Teruki cackles so much that some old ladies four tables over glare in their direction. "I like this sassy new Mob."

"Don't encourage him," Reigen groans, but he's grinning now too. "Next time we come in here, you better be in the kitchen now, you hear?"

"Yes, sensei," Mob murmurs, smile tucked in the corner, and inexplicable heat lurches in Reigen's chest. Before he can process it, Mob catches sight of something and looks up, waves. "Ah, Ritsu!"

Ritsu's come fresh from school, frog-design raincoat clutched in his hand as he launches himself at Mob for a hug. "Hey, otouto-kun!" Teruki cheers. He gets his turn to capture Ritsu, and noogies the boy as he laughs in delight.

"Hanazawa-san, you're here to visit Nii-san too?"

"So am I," Reigen jests, trying to slot himself into the conversation, and yet again, Ritsu doesn't even blink his way. Tome has tried to reassure Reigen that the kid just idolizes those with psychic powers and he doesn't exactly light up in her presence either. But Reigen can't help but feel that it's him, specifically, who Ritsu doesn't like.

Reigen sighs and pulls out his only trump card. "Come on Ritsu, I'll buy you anything you want."

Only then does Ritsu hop into the empty seat at their table and smile up at him like he's not a little blackmailer. "Thanks, Reigen-san."

Reigen sobs on the inside as he realizes he only has so much yen left on him. But making both Kageyama boys happy is priceless enough.

* * *

On the day Mob finally wears a suit to the office, Teruki does indeed swing by, with Tsubomi. They close up for lunch, Chinese takeout steaming on their desks to fuel this cheery weekend. It's the first time in years that all five of them have been in the same place together, and it's like learning to ride a bike again, finding roads into conversations Reigen didn't know he missed having.

"What's with the getup? You look like you're a waiter somewhere," Teruki snarks, good-naturedly, "or a funeral goer."

Mob glances down from his laptop to the black coat, black tie, black dress pants that he's just bought, and shrugs. "I don't really have a sense of style so I went with what was safest."

"Teru thinks neon and camo prints go together," Tome caws, kneeing her boyfriend as they're tangled together on the couch. "So don't worry about who has sense of style."

Laughing with sio bao in one's mouth isn't pretty, but Reigen does it anyway. "I think he looks just fine," Tsubomi says, agreeable in Mob's corner as always.

Somehow over Teruki and Tome's bickering punctured with kisses, the quiet "ah" Mob utters out of nowhere reaches Reigen's ears.

"What is it?" he asks. Mob's staring at his laptop screen with a face like an open gash, his fingers stilled on the keys. Tsubomi winces, probably having read his mind and not liked the contents.

Mob says, almost too hushed to hear, "Emi's messaged me on Facebook."

Tome voices the confusion that Reigen also has: "Who's Emi and why is this bad?"

"Ah." Mob hunches into himself, still not looking away from his screen. "My ex-girlfriend."

The admission feels like Reigen's been clocked in the face, reeling. "You have an ex-girlfriend?!" Tome wheezes, almost spilling her rice all over Teruki in her scramble to sit upright.

Mob's shoulders shake with what is hopefully a laugh. "You don't have to sound so shocked," he says, joking around without his heart in it.

Tome whips her head around to her girlfriend, and so does Teruki. "Tsuu-chan, did you know about this?"

Tsubomi puts on a placating, sad smile. "It wasn't my place to tell."

Reigen doesn't know what to do with this information, tethered to half a dozen horses as they gallop into different directions, ripping him to chunks. Both Tome and Teruki have migrated to Mob's laptop, probably to snoop through the profile of said ex-girlfriend.

"Mind if we know the story, Kageyama-kun?"

Everyone glances to Reigen, Mob's weighted stare the most damning of all. He'd bark at them for thinking he has a problem with it, except it appears he does indeed have a problem. So he stays clammed up, and Mob turns away from him to talk, in fits and starts. "Well. She actually went to Salt Middle too. In different classes. Different circles. She was taking humanities at a college near mine. We had. A lot more in common. Than just the past." He exhales in a rush, "We broke up after two years."

Tsubomi rubs Mob's shoulder, soothing. "So why is she messaging now all of a sudden? I thought she blocked you."

"Well. She wants to meet me. For lunch. To have closure. That's the word she used."

"Are you gonna go?"

Mob's quiet for a minute, then he nods with a beatific smile. "It'll be good for us both."

Reigen stares down at his dumplings, all gone cold. He doesn't know what's wrong with him. He's done his best to shove all thoughts of Mob as more than a friend into the attic of his mind, boarded the entrance up well. And yet through these years he's had this lasting impression of Mob hung up over him and unable to move on. Now that it turns out that he's done just that, Reigen doesn't know if he's okay with the plain reality of it.

And Reigen has no right to feel this way. He's Mob's friend, nothing less, nothing more. He should be happy that Mob got a shot at normalcy. Reigen only had a small handful of fumbles in cheap motels with an older man who never even gave his name. He was nineteen and stubborn and stupid, trying to see if he could learn desire, romance, attachment, and not catching on.

He'd rejected all that when Mob offered. These days, looking back, Reigen doesn't know if he had been more frightened of Shigeo, or of himself.

* * *

Reigen didn't expect when he arrived in Cuticle City that this venture would end with him sopping wet from having mud hosed off him, while a serial flasher is shoved into a police car across the street. At this point, he's too tired to dispute with the universe.

Mob's crouched on the sidewalk, glowing a blue not unlike the shade of his sweater. He has a steadying hand on Shinra Banshomaru's leg as the man groans and curses under his breath.

"There, you should feel better," Mob says, sitting back on his haunches. Shinra shoots a wary look his way that's quick to lighten up when he rotates his foot and finds it bearable.

"Thank you! You really are quite skilled, Kageyama-san. May I ask, how were you able to defeat the Kuchisake-onna? She thrived off of fear. You must have heard the same tales as I did growing up."

"Yes. But nothing is scarier than the idea of you getting hurt." Mob's gaze rest too heavily on Reigen, as he says so, then he catches himself and looks back to Shinra. "Any more than you already had, of course."

Reigen swallows past the lump in his throat, and says nothing. He'd seen that fear, as the Kuchisake-onna had charged at Reigen with unbridled malice, the air curdling with her screams. This is their first assignment that's pushed Mob to the edge. Where he usually has a polite yet unvested mask of professionalism, his eyes were huge and dark and depthless in his pale face. Mob stepped between them at the exact moment, his power cracking like a thousand bamboos laid flat at once, shielding them both as he attacked the spirit, no stopping or hesitating.

Mob's only motivation, in that moment, wasn't to save the town or Shinra or himself. Just Reigen.

Reigen doesn't know how to even thank him for that.

Shinra laughs and pats Mob on the back. "You should join the Sun Spiritual Union with me, Kageyama-san." He pauses, then says in a theatrical whisper, "Reigen's a fraud, you shouldn't even be working for him."

Reigen scoffs, though it encourages him to hear Mob say, "It's okay, I like where I am."

They're quiet on the walk back to the train station. Shreds of pink and gold have grown through the heavy overcast that had hung over them the whole day. Reigen takes a breath, forcing away the tension and unease the encounter has visited upon him. He feels eroded, stripped down to his essential parts.

"That little dog."

Reigen closes his eyes, already sensing where Mob is headed. Mob continues, heavy with old griefs, "I haven't let myself think much about Mika since she died."

Truth be told, neither has Reigen. The concept of any pet was soured for him, for so long. But bathing and caring for the human-faced shiba inu has made him realize he's ready for his own closure. "I think she would've loved playing with Terror."

Mob blinks at him in surprise, then tests out a smile. "She'd bully him into submission and become alpha."

"Damn right," Reigen laughs. They step onto the platform, and he decides to add, "We should go visit Dad's house sometime. See the grave."

"Ah." Mob nods, and the selfsame bittersweet smile curves his mouth. "Okay. Thank you, Arataka."

Reigen's complicated, traitorous heart thuds too heavy in his chest.

* * *

Inevitably, there's a slip-up.

It stems from the noblest of reasons, really. Mob had mentioned in passing how he wanted to try and perfect his plant control, especially on ones that bear fruit. Tome, in a spasmodic gesture of friendship, arrives to the office this morning with a tiny strawberry shrub in a pot that's almost comically large in relation to it.

"Thank you, Tome-senpai," Mob says, cradling the pot like it's precious beyond compare, beaming so wide his eyes disappear.

Tome snorts and does an it's-no-big-deal gesture, but Reigen knows she's happy too. "Go on then, do your thing."

Mob sets the pot on the table in the waiting area, and feeds it some of his power. With a rushing sound of green and growing things forced into fast-forward, the shrub's wide leaves now spill everywhere, plump berries tucked underneath them.

"Holy crap, that's amazing!" Tome gushes, whipping out her digital camera. "Ah, I should've taken a video of you doing that…"

Reigen's already visualizing their new side business of selling any and all kinds of crops they can avail. "Lemme try one!"

"Of course, Reigen-senpai."

"Ah…" Reigen frowns down at the appointments he's typing up for their calendar. "Don't wanna get up. Hand me one please, and thank you."

Mob isn't the kind of person to roll his eyes, but if he were, he'd have done so already, with amused affection. He twists a berry off its stem and approaches Reigen's desk, holding it out to him. Reigen, on a whim, decides to lean forward and bite it out of Mob's fingers. His lips and tongue graze Mob's fingertips and he can feel, taste the firmness of calluses, the bland salt of skin, the contact making his mouth tingle from grazed nerves.

Mob's breath hitches, and Reigen doesn't dare look up at his face. He already knows Tome has a judgmental eyebrow arched at them across the room. He straightens in his seat and chews to delay talking.

The odd heat in Reigen's gut dissipates when he realizes— "This tastes like crap… Ah. Sorry, Mob."

"It's okay," Mob replies, a little too quickly.

Tome saunters over to the shrub and swipes a berry. "Ack," she yelps not two seconds later, "'tastes like crap' is an understatement, what the hell, Mob-kun?" She darts for her thermos bottle of coffee, and Mob listens to her steady tirade, pretending he's not looking at Reigen pretending not to look at him.

Reigen used to wonder what could've happened if Mob had confessed without a nuclear fusion thrumming under his skin, if he really did like Reigen in the ways he said he did. But that was a lifetime ago. This idiotic tension between the two of them that had him terrified at fourteen and exhilarated at seventeen and morbidly depressed at nineteen, all this stupid potential is just residual. Photo negatives burned into retinas, muscle memory. No matter how much the world insists that everyone needs a relationship, Reigen isn't built for one, for the confusion and pain that's part and parcel with it. He'd rather keep Mob as his friend than lose him as his… anything else.

If only the rest of him would agree on that being the best outcome, for everyone's sake.


End file.
